


Coffee, Black

by black_ink_tide



Series: 'Coffee, Blackverse' [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: AU, Anal Sex, Awkward Sexual Situations, Christmas, Coffee Shop, Deepthroating, F/F, F/M, Foam Party, Frottage, Halloween, Hipsters, Karaoke, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, New Year's Eve, Open Relationship, Oral Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Ridiculous Belt Buckle, Rimming, Thanksgiving, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-12
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 133,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_ink_tide/pseuds/black_ink_tide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>K!Meme prompt: MaleHawke is working in a coffee and/or cookie/bakery shop and Fenris is becoming a regular customer.</p><p>What happens in here? Awkward Garrett Hawke is a barista with a crush on the guy with white ink tattoos who comes in to Bianca's Coffee every morning. His friends Isabela, Merrill and Andy take it upon themselves to help him, in the capacity of Wingmen, to not totally blow it with him.</p><p>It's an uphill battle every step of the way.</p><p>Watch out for falling boxes of pornography.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This guy. The guy with the white ink tattoos. The guy with the voice who doesn't make eye contact with me, but orders the same thing every day.

I feel stupid when he comes in. I get clumsy. My arms are too long and my feet are too big and, _goddammit when did my fingers get so fat??_ Without fail, I forget the names of things and not matter how much I want to say something clever, I maybe manage a monosyllabic response of two. _But, really, what can you say that's clever about cookies anyway? Some brilliant pun on oolong? My life is a disaster._

Instead I just look scared, stupid, and my hands shake and I feel like my chest is full of helium and I'm rising up towards the ceiling and it's humiliating. _Brilliant approach, Garrett. Really bloody brilliant._

This guy moves like a wolf. I don't know how else to say it. Lean and feral, but so unnervingly calm. It's that animal calm that gets me, like he knows he could tear me apart, he could hold my throat in his teeth and not bite until he wanted to, and then... What?! Stop thinking about it.

"Coffee, black."

"Mmhmm!"

He's all clean lines. Crisp black shirt, buttoned tight over a lean compact chest, sleeves rolled neatly around the thickest part of his forearms and I am staring. Staring! White ink on caramel skin, smooth arms, and his hands...

"$1.20."

My mouth is dry. He has money in his hand.

I've hesitated too long. Green eyes narrow at me from behind the thick black frames of his glasses and I am convinced I have never seen the color green before in my life.

"Sorry. Here you go," I take his money, hand him the cup. His fingers do not brush mine and it is the greatest tragedy of my life. Again. Every day.

He nods and is gone, his thick hair white and unearthly bright as he walks out of the big glass doors and out of my world until tomorrow morning at 9:05 am.

"He's single."

"W-what?"

The tall blonde guy sitting in the corner looks over the top of his MacBook Pro at me but doesn't stop typing.

"Who?"

"You know who, kitten," Isabela, who must have been hiding in the stockroom, passes by me and sits next to the blonde guy, setting a little white plate of pie on his table. She eats a corner of his crust, taking it with her fingers, "Mr. 9:05."

"Oh. Oh. You mean... _that_ guy? Oh, okay, well... that's... nice to know. Abstractly, I mean," I find myself intensely interested in the even distribution of paper napkins in the dispenser, "You... know him?"

"Andy used to work with him," Isabela pats the writer's leg under the table (at least I optimistically hope that it's his leg that she pats) and he nods.

"Oh. That's. Nice."

"Isabela, stop eating my pie. Yeah. I worked with him," he bats her hand away from his pie, "He's... interesting."

"Oh."

"All I'm saying is that while he comes in everyday at 9:05 on the nose, he won't come in unless you're at the counter," Isabela curls in next to the blonde guy, Andy, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Huh?"

"I've seen him wait outside, kitten. He apparently has no interest in getting his coffee from me. Or Merrill. Or anyone that isn't you. If that means anything."

I shrug, exhaling through my nose like, whatever, and turn, leaving them behind me to go into the stockroom and spaz out in a really sophisticated way in private.

9:05 am. Tomorrow. He'll be here, and so will I, and he'll order a black coffee. From me.


	2. Chapter 2

I like her. A lot. I really do. She’s great and lovely and sweet and when I had the flu she brought me a soup… well… okay I think it was a soup. It was brothy. She made it for me and that was really sweet.

I like Merrill.

She’s my friend.

But right now I want to strangle her.

“Ooh, I’m so sorry!”

She is hunting and pecking at the cash register and I don’t understand why she hates me and wants to ruin my life like this.

It is 9:02 am.

 _This is serious._

The middle-aged costumer rolls her overly done eyes and huffs, “If I’d have known it was going to be such a trial to pay with a gift card I’d have just used cash! Varric, your boss, gave me this card himself... you should honor it.”

Merrill is flustered. This will never end. Okay. That’s enough.

I swoop in like a big damn hero.

“Garrett! Thank you!” she coos as the customer leaves in a flutter of blonde hair, “you’re my hero!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She is standing squarely in front of the resister and shows no sign of moving.

“Merrill, why don't you--” There is only the slightest hint of panic in my voice.

“How did you do that?” she is hitting keys and entering conflicting codes.

She hates me.

She wants to die alone.

“Stop.”

It is 9:04 am.

LED letters read ERROR ERROR ERROR and I think, _yes, god, yes my life if an ERROR._

“Oh. I think I understand--”

“Merrill?”

Andy is leaning against the counter on his folded arms. He just materialized there. She looks up at him. He grins at her, and it’s so flirty even I blush a little.

“Hello, Andy.”

“Merrill, I was wondering if you could show me the French presses.”

My eyes dart to the glass doors.

My heart plummets.

He passes by, the guy with the white ink tattoos, one hand gripped around the strap of his messenger bag, he… passes by. No. He stalks by, again, like a wolf. _Dammit, Merrill!_

“Andy, you don’t need me to--”

“I’d really like to know your opinion on them. They’re all so different and you are, after all, a coffee professional. Please?”

Again with the smile. _He’s good at this._ I make a mental note. Or, rather, I try to as my brain melts and slushes down my spine.

“Oh… well. Yes. All right, Andy,” her accent sounds suddenly thicker, and her releases the register, I descend on it quickly, “Garrett, are you okay working the counter?”

“Mmhmm!”

Andy winks at me. He winks! The cheeky bastard.

At 9:05, Andy turns away from the counter, which I man like the captain of a ship, and the door opens.

He is perfect and smells like summer sunshine and, and… what?!

“G-good morning.”

That’s new. Okay, Garrett, keep it together! This is going well.

Two whole words.

He looks at me, really looks.

I understand. I get it. I have thrown off the rhythm. Our pattern. Everything we have ever known together. _Good Morning._

“Good… morning.”

One dark eyebrow arches and I want to touch it. _With my finger._

What? Stop being a crazy person. _You want to touch his eyebrow?_

“Black coffee?” I’m feeling bold! Reckless!

“Yes.”

I am staring at his throat because that’s where that word came from. Yes. Deep. Rough. If there is a sexier word than _yes_ I've never heard it. The ink is there too, on his neck, thin lines running from his chin down beneath the collar of his black shirt. Always the black shirts, black pants... I wonder...

 _Okay. Come on, Hawke, pour that coffee._

It’s hot, warm through the insulated wall of the cup. Cheerful letters read Bianca's Coffee on the side beneath the crossbow logo. _Black coffee and red ink letters and a white cup. Coffee. Cup. Lid. Great._

I look up, and he has his hand out, with money.

Take the money.

“$1.20.”

He says it, not me.

I smile.

I understand that this is stupid. Completely. I look mad. Smiling like an idiot about $1.20.

He drops the money into my hand.

And the backs of his fingers brush my palm.

It feels like being shocked.

I look at him, bold as I will ever be in my damned life, and his eyes slide away from mine, beneath dark thick eyelashes.

He goes, adjusting the strap of his bag across his chest. The door closes behind him.

Andy jogs across my field of vision to the table where his things are messily strewn. I watch him feeling dazed and giddy, letting out a breath I had apparently been holding for a little too long. I should sit down.

I notice then that his Mac is open and angled at the counter. He shifts is towards himself and ducks into the view of the camera.

The _camera_.

“How was that?” he asks brightly.

I hear Isabela’s voice through the speakers, “Beautiful work, tiger!”

“You…” I toss a rag on the counter, strictly for emphasis, and go to the table.

Yup. She watched the whole thing from home.

“You did great, kitten! He almost smiled. And that sweater? Good choice.”

“What are we doing?” Merrill wedges herself between Andy and myself, “Oh, hello Bela.”

“I hate you people.” I push up the sleeves of my sweater. My blue sweater. _My blue sweater that, yes, okay fine, that I picked out last night because Isabela told me once that it made my eyes look bluer._

Isabela’s laugh follows me back to the counter, “No you don’t! We’re your Wingmen!”

“My Wingmen!”

“What’s a Wingman?” Merrill asks, looking up at Andy, then at Isabela.

“A Wingman, Merrill, is a generous and benevolent being… who helps someone else get laid.”

“Oh.”

“Andy has been my Wingman and I have been his for years, pet.”

“Since college.”

“That’s right.”

“I thought you two were…” I can’t help it. I can’t stay out of it.

“Well… if for whatever reason it doesn’t work out in the field, she and I have each other.”

“ _Have_ being the operative word,” Isabela purrs.

“All right,” I pinch the bridge of my nose, “great. So. You two… right. And now you’re including me in your… wingman… wingmaness?”

“It’s a challenge, sure, given just how painfully awful you are at everything. But yes,” Andy exhales, "We have made it our mission to see that you don't screw this up."

“Can I be a Wingman?” Merrill asks him, “I want to help Garrett, too. Is this about that man? The tattooed one?” She sounds conspiratorial.

I groan, dropping my head to the counter and feeling crumbs of coffee cake and gritty cinnamon against my forehead.

“The more the merrier, I say,” Andy grins at her, “What are you doing tonight?”

He’s said this to me. “What? Why?”

“Well, if you’re not doing anything… I was going to invite you to a party tonight that I believe our Johnny Cash will be at.”

“Johnny Cash?” I look up, “Is that his name?”

Andy looks at me blankly, “No. No, _Johnny Cash_? The Man in Black? Nothing? _No_?”

“Tiger, you are lovely and wonderful and a beast in bed, but you are so old.”

“Shut up, Bela,” he sips his coffee, “His name isn’t Johnny Cash. He goes by Fen now.”

“Okay…” I clear my throat. _Fen_. I’m feeling bold again, “what’s this party?”

He smiles, “Well--”

“Isabela, do you not have any clothes on?” Merrill is peering into the screen. Andy ducks down to have a look as well.

 _Are you there, God? It’s me, Garrett._

 _Help me._


	3. Chapter 3

“I really appreciate you stopping by to do this, sweetheart.”

“It’s…” I blink rusty water out of my eyes, “not a problem.”

Since Carver and Beth started college, she’s had this big house to herself and it seems to be immediately falling in around her ears. _I can’t imagine that Carver actually did anything around the house… but given it’s quick state of decline since his departure, maybe he did._

I came by right after work, and top priority was to make sure this leaking pipe didn’t flood her basement.

“It’s not an inconvenience? You didn’t have any… plans?”

“What?”

“A date?”

Oh, for the love of god.

“It’s only… it’s been a long time since Sebastian--”

“Mother, I do not want to talk about Sebastian.”

“All right, all right…”

I pull hard on the wrench one last time. My shoulders hurt from keeping my arms up for so long, trying in vain to stop this drip. The last person in the world I want to think about is that scripture spouting, born again, holier than thou Scottish bastard.

I drop my arms and look at her, “No. No dates. Especially not at 3:00 in the afternoon.”

My mother purses her lips and raises her eyebrows, “You’re not getting any younger, Garrett.”

“Wh--”

“And neither am I!” she smiles, softening the blow.

“I’m twenty seven, mother. I’m not a…” the water in my eye stings and I wonder briefly if it will blind me somehow, tainted, dirty basement-pipe water that it is, and I briefly envision myself with a white cane, “what’s the male equivalent of a crone?”

“Oh, there isn’t one. And more’s the pity,” she steps closer and looks at my handiwork, “That should do.”

I look up, “Good to see that my gangliness actually serves a purpose.”

“I thought your father’s gangliness was one of his most attractive features,” she puts a hand on my arm, “You’re so much like him. Now, before you go, would you mind popping up on the roof and taking a look at my shingles? It’s the last thing, I promise.”

…

“Well, I think it looks good. Dashing. Rakish.”

“ _This_ looks dashing and rakish?”

“Absolutely,” Isabela sounds confident, but then, I’ve never heard her sound anything but confident, swarthy even, “Without the accurate context, naturally. Very much so.”

The accurate context, of course, being that as I was attempting to move boxes off of the shelf in Carver’s old bedroom closet (the _last_ last task my mother asked me to do) the largest of said boxes fell and hit me in the face.

“We just don’t need to tell anyone that it was your younger brother’s pornography collection that gave you a black eye,” Isabela, ever helpful, dabs an ice cube against my face.

“Right. Yeah. Figured I might want to keep that to myself.”

“Just be aloof about it, if anyone asks. Was there anything good in there at least?” she asks.

“I didn’t get a chance to look,” I sneer.

We had agreed to meet at my place and take one car over to this… party. Some kind of employee and former-employee party for a bookstore that Andy, and apparently Fen used to work at together. _Theirin’s_ the place was called. I’d been there are few times. The last time I'd sat and read WIRED and not actually bought anything but the cup of coffee I’d had was burnt. It left a literal and figurative bad taste in my mouth and I’d never been back.

Anyway, Isabela was the first to arrive, living in the apartment directly above mine. She took great pleasure in administering the ice to my eye.

The doorbell chimes. There is a loud thudding crash and thundering barking from my entryway.

“Bradley!” I call, taking the ice cube from Isabela’s fingers and standing, “Come here, boy!”

Bradley, who must have some ungodly amount of great dane in his mutt blood, bounds into the living room, nearly knocking me legs out from under me.

I open the front door and see Andy and Merrill standing there together.

“You didn’t say you had a dog,” Andy says curtly.

“I didn’t think I needed to. He doesn’t like the doorbell. It’s better to knock.”

“You have a lovely place, Garrett,” Merrill slides in past me, “Do you own it? Ooh. Did you paint these?”

“Yes, I did.”

She’s looking at my paintings with an appraising eye.

Andy, meanwhile, has not moved from his spot on my porch.

“Well, please, come in. Didn’t know I needed to be so formal.”

“Tiger’s afraid of dogs, kitten,” Isabela siddles up next to me. It’s suddenly becoming very crowded in the entryway. Isbela’s chest brushes against mine in a way that I know is not accidental.

“What does it mean, Garrett?” Merrill touches one of the canvases lightly, feeling the nubby paint.

“Uhh… oh, I don’t know, Merrill. Andy, come in, he doesn’t bite.”

“I’m, uh… I’m fine out here. Don’t worry about me.”

“Tiger…”

 _Stop rubbing me, Isabela!_

“No, really. It’s fine. Nice night for it. Nice eye, by the way. What happened?” his hands are buried in the pockets of his dark corduroys.

“Box of porn hit me in the face.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I think this is lovely, Garrett. Will you paint something for me? I like green. Will you paint me something green?”

“Of course. Anything you want. Let’s just… let’s go.”

I collect Bradley and check his food and water in the yard. He hates being left outside. He looks up at me, betrayal and abandonment in his deep brown, soulful eyes. I scratch behind his ears with both hands.

“I’ll be back soon, man.”

My motley crew is assembled on the front porch, Andy smoking a hand rolled cigarette and looking smugly collected again. _Afraid of dogs! Ridiculous._

“Am I… is what I’m wearing okay?”

Three sets of eyes scan over me, head to toe and back.

“I think you look very handsome,” Merrill says, “I’d sleep with you.”

“Perfect. That’s… well that’s something, isn’t it?” I grab my coat and hit the lights.

“I like you shoes,” she whispers in my ear and she and I wedge into the backseat of Andy’s car. My legs are way, way too long. _I’m a monster. A lanky, awkward monster._

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, very much. I always think a tall man in Chucks looks very approachable.”

“That’s… reassuring.”

“You smell like dog,” Andy says, pulling out and rummaging through his glove compartment with one hand. He pulls out a bottle of something and reaches back to hand it to me, “Here.”

“What? Is that cologne? I’m not wearing cologne!”

“A little bit might not hurt. You are a bit… homey,” Isabela offers, twisting around and adjusting the seatbelt between her breasts.

“Homey?!”

“Doggy.”

“I like it,” Merrill says, sniffing me.

“Okay, fine. A bit. I don’t want to smell like a fraternity.”

Andy laughs and drives.

Isabela turns up the volume on the radio.

Merrill hums along off key.

 _And I, Garrett Hawke, place my fate in their hands. Like a chump._

 _And I smell like a fraternity on top of everything else._


	4. Chapter 4

I have never been great at these kinds of things. Parties. Dark rooms. Loud indistinct music. Cheap beer. Me standing awkwardly and trying look like I was maybe swaying in an intentionally disinterested way to the awful music.

Whenever I went to parties in college, normally against my will, I’d usually make a little awkward conversation, or try to, drink a beer and start longing for home in a way that was really disproportionate to the amount of time I’d be out. I start fantasizing about being back in my twin extra-long bed. In my sweatpants. It sounded like heaven to be there, tucked-in in the dark and not in someone’s living room trying to find something, anything, that I had in common with sweaty girl with breath that smelled like turkey lunch meat.

I was never a party guy.

I was especially never a party guy who actually picked up anyone at a party. Or hooked up. Or made out. Hit on. None of it. I was taken. And loyal. And, goddammit, it means that apparently I will lurch forward like someone who was in a coma for years and all my be-charming-and-convince-people-you’re-worth-sleeping-with muscles have atrophied.

My Wingmen are here to apparently make up for my short-comings.

They flank me as we enter the store. Christmas lights are wrapped festively around the black letters of the sign. _Theirin’s_. A friendly hand written sign is taped on the glass doors – “ _Closed early for private party!_ ”

The lights are dimmed, but the shop feels cozy rather than skeezy. Nothing like a dilapidated house party thrown by art students. I forget sometimes that I am no longer in my early twenties and that parties now can actually sometimes, occasionally, be… nice. Pleasant.

Significantly less sweaty and more civil. Coiled rope lights on the tops of the shelves provide a little extra warm and friendly lighting.

Okay. I can handle this.

Andy grabs beer in dark bottles out of a tub of ice and opens them with a church-key on his keys.

“Oh, no, thank you, Andy, but I don’t drink,” Merrill says apologetically, “I guess I should have said so sooner.”

“Not a problem,” he says, holding two open bottles and drinking from one, “I’ll just have to find a new friend to give this one to.”

“Remember that we are here for _him_ ,” Isabela adjusts his collar, then smirks, “and good luck.”

He holds one bottle in the crook of his elbow and presses his thumb against the cleft in her chin in a surprisingly affectionate gesture and then, wham, he’s gone.

I get Merrill a root beer (and actually manage to twist it open after a few feeble attempts) and the three of us make our way towards the center of the store. The main register is there, and most people are clustered around it in groups.

A cute redhead is playing the guitar in the café. Her voice is pretty and lilting. She must have an accent. French? It’s so hard to tell when someone’s singing.

 _Well this is nice._

“Do you want to sit?” I ask the two of them, pointing and what looks like the most comfortable, cozy reading nook I’ve ever seen. Plush red and orange cushions beckon me…

“Rule Number One, kitten,” Isabela, grabs my arm, “stay on your feet. Tables and couches are for old boring couples and losers who’ve checked out of the game, not young single cats on the prowl.”

“Which is what you are, Garrett. A cat. Prowling,” Merrill offers.

“We’re really doing this? You two weren’t joking? There are rules?”

“Yes. No. And Yes.”

“Is he here yet? Do you think he’s here?” Merrill twists and looks around with no sense of subtlety whatsoever and I seriously question my Wingmen’s wisdom if they so willingly accepted Merrill’s help. I love her and everything… but she’s not exactly… suave.

Or maybe the cause is just that desperate.

“Funny running into the three of you here.”

“Varric!”

Since the day I first met him, I have never stopped thinking that Varric looks like a pirate. He’s just… he is dashing. European without being douchey. And, Jesus Christ, the women he ends up with. Gorgeous, beautiful women. _He’s definitely a pirate._

“What are you doing here, Varric?” Isabela asks.

“I know the owners. Nice couple. She’s one of the best poker players I’ve ever known. He’s one of the worst,” he laughs and takes a sip of what I believe to be scotch, “We should have a party like this sometime at Bianca’s I think. Make it an evening of coffee cocktails,” he looks at me, “what happened to your face, kid?”

“Whuh…”

“Rough sex,” Isabela offers quickly, smirking behind the mouth of her beer.

He nods agreeably, and claps me on the arm “I don’t entirely believe that, but I congratulate you none-the-less.”

“Thanks,” I say to both of them.

The front door opens.

Merrill and I look, heads snapping around. Isabela, thank god, is smoother.

Not him. A tall man with close cropped curly hair.

“What time is it?” Merrill asks.

“Umm,” Varric checks his (incredibly expensive) watch, “10:02.”

“Oh,” she sighs.

“What?”

“I thought… well, wouldn’t it be perfect if he came at 9:05?”

I blush.

And feel stupid.

And, god help me, but that would be perfect.

If I wrote this as a book, that’s how I’d write it happening.

It would read on Page 107:

 _Garrett scratched his muscular barrel chest (that came to him naturally even though he didn’t really work out) and stretched his incredibly toned arms wide._

 _‘Welp. It’s getting late.’_

 _‘It’s only 9:05!’ Isabela shrieked._

 _Just then, the front doors swung wide and October air flooded in, crisp  
and smelling like leaves and pumpkins and that funny nice October smell. (Why does October smell so much better than every other month?)_

 _Right._

 _The doors swung open and there he was._

 _He pinned Garrett with an intense green gaze._

 _‘You’re here,’ he growled._

 _‘You’re here, too,’ Garrett replied coolly, sipping his Glenmorangie with an arched eyebrow._

 _The man in the doorway came forward and--_

“Hey!”

“What?” _I’d be a terrible writer. Thank god I have other talents…_

“Varric asked you a question,” Merrill nudges me.

“What’s that now?”

“Can you work on Halloween?”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course. I mean, it might cut into my daytime Trick-or-Treating, but… for you, Varric, anything.”

“You have to wear a costume,” Isabela said.

“Do I?”

“Company policy,” Varric said, shrugging and smiling.

 _Pirate! He’s a charming, furry pirate._

“Yeah… fine. Sure. Of course.”

“Okay. Enough shop talk. My date is waiting for me,” Varric winks at me,

“Good luck, kid.”

As he walks away, I glare, “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. He’s just… he sees everything, you know.”

“Bela!”

We look over to where Andy is talking to a tall blonde guy and a short brunette girl in a festive teal dress. He waves us (or, I assume, _us_ ) over.

“Alistair,” Andy says as we approach, “Lissa, you both know Isabela.”

It’s dark. I can’t tell, but I’m pretty sure the man blushes as he says hello. The woman smiles warmly and gives Isabela a strong hug.

“And these two work with her, over at Bianca’s. Garrett and Merrill.”

We shake hands, say _hellos_ , _nice to meet yous_ , _lovely place you’ve got heres_. Merrill asks where they got so many rope lights.

But, the thing is, it is actually lovely. They have a nice place, and I’m having a nice time and drinking a nice beer.

I just have this nasty habit of turning and staring at the door like a paranoid and overly dramatic owl every time someone new comes in.

As midnight comes and goes, and then 1:00 comes and goes, I start to seriously doubt that Fen will show up at all.

Isabela, too, seems to have accepted this fact.

The three of us, she, Merrill and I, are now seated together in the nook, Merrill’s legs draped over mine as she eats pickily from a plate of cheese and crackers.

Andy, meanwhile, clearly found a new friend to give that beer to.

He is sitting on the counter in the middle of the store, holding a glass of something mixed between his hands and talking, very smirkily with a handsome brunette guy who is casually standing between his legs.

I’m watching them, like a creeper, without meaning to.

He kisses Andy.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I ask Isabela.

“Does what bother me, kitten?” she’s texting and her face is illuminated by the screen of her phone.

“Andy.”

She looks up and sees them. She watches for a moment, then looks back down at her phone, thumbs flying, “Listen, kitten, you’re sweet. But if it bothered me, I wouldn’t keep doing it.”

“You both just seem… I don’t know…”

“Happy?” Merrill says, “Compatible?”

“Maybe so,” Isabela shrugs, “but I like what we have _as is_. That, my little babies, is the key to long lasting happiness.”

I can’t help it. I keep watching them, which, to be fair, is partly because they are one of very, very few people left in the shop.

“What I don’t love is being the one who has to arrange another means of getting us all home when our ride is clearly going to be otherwise engaged,” she says flatly. Her phone buzzes.

“Ahh. Success! A trustworthy D.D. is so hard to find these days, but I’ve always got one to fall back on.”

Isabela manages to get Andy’s eye for a moment and he smiles at her over the cute brunette's shoulder. I don't understand how that doesn't bother her...

We leave.

Outside, about twenty minutes later, a silver minivan pulls up to the curb. The sliding door automatically slides open. Slightly drunk and terminally cool as I am, it makes me think of Star Trek and I giggle.

“I was asleep, Isabela,” a woman’s voice says from the driver’s seat.

“But you came anyway. So sweet,” Isabela hops in first, “Hello, Donnic.”

A gruff, “Hrmph,” comes from the shotgun seat.

“Why did you drag him along?” Isbaela asks as Merrill climbs inside.

“Because, if I have to suffer, so does he. That’s what marriage means.”

Isabela laughs.

I see the flare of a match out of the corner of my eye and look.

The gleam of white hair in the dark, kind of ethereal in the moonlight and the light from the shop window. A puff of smoke.

Oh, god.

“Hi!”

What?!

“Uh… hi.”

The reply is low, deep, and rough.

Then he and I just stand there, awkwardly, silently. The van idles in front of me and I’m standing there breathing in exhaust fumes and I want to tell this woman that she should get this thing smog checked and…

“I, uh… I just got here.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Guess I’m… a little more than fashionably late,” he steps closer. Arriving on foot. Dressed in a peacoat.

 _He is magical. Ugh. Shut up, brain! You say the dumbest stuff!_

“What happened to you eye?”

“Are you in or out?” I hear from the front seat, gruffly.

“Oh, shut up, Aveline!” Isabela hisses.

“Your friends are waiting,” he smiles and takes a drag off his cigarette.

This is one of those big life moments. In a movie, this is where the music would swell and I make the big decision, to stay or go.

I see myself slamming the sliding door closed and banging on the side of the van. And staying. And talking. And kissing. And…

I also see myself mumbling something about porn and laughing awkwardly and climbing into the van and hanging my head in shame while Isabela throttles me senseless from the back of the van.

“I. Uh…”

“I’m sorry, Garrett. I’m drunk! Good night, kitten!” Isabela cackles, acting more drunkenly than I know she is, and slides the door shut from the inside.

And then we’re standing there, glowing in the red tail lights as the van pulls away.

There’s no soundtrack.

Just me. And him. And that really great October smell.

And Andy stumbling out of the shop, loudly and groaningly making out with the brunette guy.

Some wingman he turned out to be.


	5. Chapter 5

“So. Um.”

“Yeah.”

“So.”

“Uhnn…”

They will never stop. I can hear smacking. _Smacking!_

“That’s distracting, isn’t it?” Fen laughs, deep in his throat, picking a speck of tobacco from his lip.

 _Fuck. Fuck! He’s beautiful when he smiles._

“Yeah…”

He shifts his weight, his face down. His hair, which by the way looks really, really soft, falls forward. Standing next to him, without a counter and a register between us, I am painfully aware of just how much taller I am than him. A foot? Maybe just under a foot.

I thought I was a little drunk. I’m not. I was a little punchy, sure, but so sober.

I’m the most sober man on the face of the planet.

The sound of a male body colliding with the wall is accompanied by a gasp and the jingle of the bell above the door to the shop.

The guy who owns the place, Alistair, pokes his head out.

Andy and the guy stop, briefly, and look at him.

“Hey, guys…” he says, drawling, “how are you?”

“Your wife makes a strong drink,” Andy points at him accusingly.

“She does. Yeah. You had a few?”

“I did.”

“And you, Nate?”

The brunette guy shrugs, “A few.”

“Super,” Alistair replies, drumming his fingers against the frame of the door, “do you--”

“Ahh!” I hear Andy gasp as the guy’s face closes in on his throat? His ear? I can’t tell. I don’t _want_ to tell.

And I kind of do.

A little.

Alistair looks at me and Fen (which, the very fact that my brain can formulate the concept of Fen and I being a thing in any way shape or form is, like, thrilling… god, I’m embarrassing). “Think you can make sure these guys get where they’re going safely? Oh, hey, Fen.”

“Hey, Alistair.”

“Umm…” I fidget. When a tall guy fidgets, everyone notices. There is just no hiding six feet five inches of gawky. “I can drive them. Yeah.”

“Thanks,” Alistair smiles lopsidedly. A small, feminine, well-manicured hand appears at his collar from behind the edge of the door and he is pulled back inside with a yelped, “Good luck!”

“Hey, Andrew.”

I see Andy look up through the smoke that Fen exhales.

“Fen!” he pushes against Nate’s chest and walks towards us, snatching the man’s hand with one of his own and digging through his pants pockets with the other (they are very tight pants), “You’ve met my friend, Garrett Malcolm Hawke?”

“Hi,” I say, waving with the stupidest little salute.

“Hi.”

Very warm keys are dangled in front of my face, and I take them.

“You were tardy to the party,” Andy says, frowning at Fen. The man has very expressive eyebrows.

“Apparently.”

“Night owl!” he laughs, too hard, “Did you walk? You walk everywhere.”

“Yeah. I walked.”

“Okay, cool, Garrett can drive you home.”

“Whuh,” I raise my hands, “I mean, yeah… I can… if you…”

“Do you want help?” Fen smirks.

“Fuh… yeah! Yeah,” I wrinkle my nose and hope to god it looks cute, “They seem horrible.”

I think I see Andy nod. I think so. I think he nods and looks incredibly sober for the quickest split second.

And then his tongue is back in Nate’s mouth.

 _Fuck a duck. He’s is the greatest wingman of them all!_

“Where’s your car?” Fen asks.

Andy points vaguely in the direction of the car and heads off, his arm around Nate’s wide shoulders. Nate’s arm is around his waist.

“To the Batcave!” he shouts.

“Thanks,” I say to Fen as we follow them. I squeeze Andy’s keys until the teeth dig into my palm.

Okay. This is fine. Fine. Look at how well I’m doing. Don’t ruin this, brain. We’re doing it--

I trip over a branch on the sidewalk.

I make a stupid Whoop! sound, but thank god, I catch myself.

“You all right?” he asks.

“Yeah! Great!”

“You’re good to drive?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah… just… clumsy. Not drunk! It takes a lot of alcohol to get me drunk.”

 _…Brain!_

“Oh.”

“Not that I’m a drunk… not.. I mean… I don’t have, like, a tolerance or anything. I’m just.. I’m big.”

 _I hate you._

“Tall.”

 _I hate you so much, brain._

“You’re not very tall.”

 _Oh, sweet jesus. This is why we can’t have nice things!_

“It probably doesn’t take very much to get you drunk.”

 _Fuck you, brain!_

He laughs and it sounds like sandpaper, like a cat’s tongue.

“Sorry.”

“No. You’re just stating the truth.”

 _We’re breaking up, brain. I’m finding some other brain who will treat me better._

By the time we reach the car, Andy and Nate are pressed hard against the hood. There is _grinding_ involved now.

“All right, that’s enough,” I say and unlock the doors.

They part long enough to get into the backseat and quickly resume. _Andy is vocal, isn’t he!_

I adjust the seat, sliding back to accommodate my legs which are significantly longer than Andy’s.

“Hey!” from the backseat. Nate, behind me, has lost precious legroom.

“Sorry.”

“Just… put them over here,” Andy’s voice is low. He pulls Nate’s legs over to his side. I see him in the rearview mirror. _This is moving quickly_.

Fen is in next to me, and buckled in. The street lamp reflects in his glasses.

He smells great. Really great. A little bit like weed. I _like_ weed.

“Okay, guys. Look. I don’t care what you do, just… let’s not get… I mean… just wait until we drop you off, yeah? Please.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Fine.”

I start the car and pull out.

“Andy?”

“Yeah?”

“Where do you live?”

I drive to the brusquely given address. Fen has his hand around the door handle, as if ready to make a quick rolling escape.

“So,” I can do this, “you worked at Theirin’s?”

“For a year. A year ago.”

“Did you like it.”

He makes a _meh_ sound, “It was all right.”

“What do you do now?”

Small talk!

“Take pictures.”

“Oh. Yeah? Like, at a studio?”

I almost say, like at a SEARS. _Because I’m the WORST._

“No. Headshots and weddings. For friends mostly. Trying to get it off the ground.”

We are quiet for a minute. Only to have the sounds from the back seat prompt us both to find a reason to keep talking.

“I don’t like working for anyone else, you know? I like the freedom of being my own boss.”

“Yeah. Totally.”

“What about you?”

 _Oh, my god. He doesn’t recognize me. All this and he doesn’t even know--_

“Oh. Wait. That’s stupid. I know what you do. Really good coffee.”

“Thank you.”

Okay. Crisis averted.

There is a particularly carnal moan from the backseat.

“Hey! Stop,” I sound like my dad on a roadtrip, “Hey! I want to see hands! Show me your hands!”

Three palms are raised, with matching faces of pure innocence behind them.

“Where’s the other one?” eyes darting from the road to the rearview mirror.

The other one slides up slowly.

“Please, guys, we’re almost there. Let’s not make this anymore Taxi Cab Confessions than it already is, yeah?”

“Sorry, Garrett.”

“Yeah, sorry…”

They are quiet then, kissing almost sweetly. _Almost_.

“Rough day?”

“Long day.”

“Hmmm.”

The sound of that. That _Hmmm_. Like he’s really mulling it over. Really.

“Andy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to take your car, okay? I’ll come by in the morning and you can drop me off at my place.”

“Mmm. Fine.”

I pull in front of his place. Fen gets out and the two of them slither out on his side.

I tighten my hands on the steering wheel.

 _Okay. Okay! Gonna be alone in the car--_

“Hey.”

I jump. Andy is at my window, leaning in.

“What?”

“Can I have my house key?” he smiles, charmingly and startlingly sober again.

“Yeah… of course,” I fish the car key off the ring while it’s still in the dash.

He leans in, “What rule are you on?”

“What?”

“What rule. Are you. On?”

“Uhh… I heard rule number one.”

“Which was.”

“Stay on your feet.”

“Great. Rule Number Two,” he says this as Fen is siding the seat forward again and getting back in, “Sleep When You’re Dead.”

“What does that mean--”

He is suddenly sloppily drunk again, leaning in to kiss me roughly on the cheek, “You’re a great hero, Garrett Hawke! A Champion!”

We watch him go to up the stone path to the house and wait until both he and Nate are inside.

“Where do you live?”

Back on the other side of town. Not all that far from Theirin’s, actually.

“Is that…” he stops himself.

“What?”

“Is that blood on your hand?”

“What?” I look, “Oh. No. Just paint.”

“Oh. I thought with the eye…”

“Oh,” be aloof, Garrett, “yeah. No. Paint.”

“You… paint?”

A note of interest. _I’m going to barf._

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What do you… paint?”

“Canvases.”

He grunts, and I hear smoke in his voice. That voice.

“Oils, mostly, these days,” I say, gripping the wheel, “My dad was a painter. So is my sister.”

“Is it genetic, do you think?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. My brother Carver has no artistic talent whatsoever.”

“Hmm…”

“I went to school for it,” I pull through an intersection, “My dad did too. My sister is there now, actually. But, I mean… my dad always said that he wasn’t sure if art school was really there to train artists how to be better artists or to keep them away from the rest of the normal population for a few years. He didn’t want me to go. Said I could learn more by just living.”

I am talking. A lot.

“He thought that art school is a prison?”

“Ha. Yeah.”

“Noticed you used the past tense.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

 _And… we’ve arrived at dead dad. Great. Perfect. Just where I wanted to get. Let’s just barrel through broken heart and drive headlong into sexual insecurities while we’re at it. Throw in embarrassing phobias. Weird moles for good measure._

He is politely quiet, but I see him let go of the door handle.

He lives in a building full of very small studio apartments. I stop in front.

“Sorry you missed the party.”

“I should have left earlier. It’s a problem. I’m not very punctual.”

Oh, really, Mr. 9:05?

“I, uh, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 _No. No! Shut up, mouth! We were doing so well!_

“You work on Saturdays?”

Neither of us move. Staring through the windshield.

He knows when I work.

“Uh. No. I don’t. I… misspoke. Like when you buy tickets at a movie theater and the person selling you your ticket says, ‘Enjoy the movie,’ and you say, ‘you too,’ even though it doesn’t make any sense because she’s not seeing a movie she’s selling tickets in a box office but you just say it because… that’s just what you say. And you thought she was going to say, ‘Have a nice day,’ instead.”

 _Fuck!!_

“Yeah. Like that.”

My phone vibrates in my pocket.

“Well, good night.”

“Yeah, good night.”

He gets out. Closes the door. Goes inside.

I yell, frustrated.

I pull my phone out of my pocket with enormous shaking hands.

 **From: Isabela  
Body:  
rule nmber 3. when sitting in a dark car alone, make a move. you pussy.**

As if on cue, but a cue that was missed because the prop-guy was busy fondling a stage-hand, Andy’s glove compartment falls open. Condoms and his registration paperwork fall out onto the floor board.

“Well,” I say to myself, “that went about as well as it could have. Right?”


	6. Chapter 6

I sleep that night (or try to) with Bradley pressed heavily across my legs. Hard to sleep like that on a normal night. Especially given that Bradley farts in his sleep almost constantly. But tonight, my brain is whirring and I feel wired and exhausted and…

 _Did that just happen?_

Wingmen! I’m sold on the idea. I don’t even know Andy that well and I think he’s my new best friend. We should make matching hemp bracelets for each other with BFF spelled out in letter beads. I did that at camp once. With a kid named Cullen. Those were simpler times, when your best friend was your best friend because you both liked the same action figures. Not like now, when your new best friend made out with and possibly jerked off another man in the backseat of his own car thus providing you with the opportunity to actually talk, in words and sentences, to the taciturn hipster you’ve been obsessed with for months.

It’s settled. I’m making Andy a bracelet.

At some point, despite Bradley’s best efforts, I do fall asleep.

My phone wakes me up.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hello, mother.”

“Is this a good time to talk?”

I’m about 70% awake, “Buh… yeah.”

“You’re not… I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Interupting--”

“There’s not anyone… with you?”

 _My mother, always the optimist._

“No. No one. Well, Bradley.”

“Ooh! Who is-- Oh… your dog. Yes. Right.”

I look at the clock. 9:00 am.

“What do you… what’s up, mom?”

“I just wanted to check in, see how your eye was doing. I felt so awful when that happened yesterday. Did you put frozen peas on it?”

“Yeah. I did,” I lie, “Right. Well, better me than you, right?”

“I’m not entirely sure what to do with… with Carver’s _things_.”

His porn.

“I mean… I guess… well, I’d ask if you wanted them, but they’re not really your cup of tea, so…” Carver is, as it turns out, apparently something of a breast man… or, maybe I should say jugs. I think once they get that big they can only properly be called jugs, “and I feel funny about throwing them out. What if a child found them in the trash?”

“Uhh… you know, don’t worry about it. I’ll come by later and pick it up.”

“You… will?”

“Mother!”

“Oh. Yes. Right.”

“I’ll text him, see… what he wants to do with them. It. With the box.”

He will be mortified that Mother knows about it. But, really, he could have hidden it better. She never found mine... I think.

 _Oh, god._

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

I hang up, and nestle back into my pillow with Bradley tucked obligingly under my arm as my little spoon.

I’m almost asleep again when my phone rings.

“Hey, Bethy, what’s going on?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. I was up. What’s going on? How’s school?”

“It’s good,” I can hear music in the background. She’s three hours ahead of me, on the other side of the country. I miss her terribly. Being nine years older than both of my siblings had always meant that there were a lot of ways in which I felt distant from them, but many more ways I felt protective. Especially of Bethany. Sweet, guileless, chesty Bethany. “I, uh, I wanted to ask you about something.”

“Oh-kay…”

“Okay, so… last night I slept with this guy from my life drawing class--”

“You _what_?!”

“What?”

“You…” I’m sitting up now, “Bethy.”

“Uh, it’s not a big deal. Really.”

“Sex is always a big deal!” _Okay, maybe it isn’t. But… it’s my big conscientious older brother responsibility to say that it is, right?_

“It really isn’t. But. Okay…”

“Is something wrong? Did he hurt you? Did you… were you _safe_?”

“Garrett,” she’s laughing, “calm down! I’m fine. We used a condom. He was a perfect gentleman.”

I then spend the next thirty minutes listening to my baby sister tell me, in blessedly colorless terms, about her night with this guy. He had, apparently, told her repeatedly that he loved her and she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that.

I should be better at this. I should be calm and an authority on the subject. I should have all the answers… but I don’t. And, insult to injury, my baby sister seems better equipped and better adjusted than me. Either way, I tell her that he was probably just swept up in the moment. It happens to everybody. Especially artsy types. We love getting swept up in moments.

“What about you?” she asks, “Is there anybody?”

“Maybe.”

It’s the first time I’ve admitted it.

I smile, embarrassed but happy as she squeals on the other end of the line.

“Tell me about him! What’s going on? I want constant updates!”

I tell her about Fen, and about the party and the drive. And my Wingmen.

“He sounds perfect for you,” she says, “please don’t screw this up, Gare-Bear.”

“I’m trying!”

“It’s nice that you have help. You need the help.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Ooh!” she sounds just like Mother for a split second, “Seriously. Keep me posted! I’m so excited for you! You’ve been single for, like, _ever_.”

Battered ego aside, this just makes it worse, right? Having someone know about it and thinking, maybe more surely than I think it, that it could work.

It just means there’s that much more pressure on me to not ruin everything.

I hate that.

Because I’m really, phenomenally good at ruining things.

…

I text Carver about his porn. He does not reply.

Andy texts me that it's fine to come by whenever.

I knock on his door, cautiously.

The door opens, “Good Morning!”

It looks to be a better morning for some of us than others.

“Let me find a shirt. Come on in,” he waves me inside. He is shirtless and scratched and wearing some kind of silver token on a chain around his neck.

 _He is not opposed to jewelry, then. He will love my friendship bracelet._

It’s a small but well laid out studio on the ground floor, books stacked high against the exposed brick walls, lots of windows, lots of light, not much furniture besides an imposing writing desk and a very disordered bed in which a large male body still seems to be tangled in sheets.

He pulls a t-shirt from the dresser next to the fridge and slides on a pair of sunglasses.

“One second,” he trots back over to the edge on the bed and crawls halfway on top of the still sleeping figure, talking quietly and rubbing his back.

 _This is awkward._

 _What do I do with my hands?_

 _Normally, I mean. They just kind of hang there, right?_

 _That’s weird. Hands are weird._

I scan the stacks of books, my focus intent on the battered spines.

There’s a book on the top of the one of the stacks, face down. Andy’s picture is on the back of it.

Huh.

I go to pick it up but don’t have time. He’s up.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Is…” I look at the bed, “your friend joining us?”

“Nate? Nahh… he’s tired,” he rubs his scratched side, “Can’t blame him.”

“Please. Don’t tell me. Okay?”

He smiles, “Whatever you say.”

“I have delicate sensibilities,” I say as we head towards his car.

“Were your delicate sensibilities in anyway impugned upon last night?” he goes to the driver’s side and unlocks the door.

“Maybe a little by what was happening in the backseat…” I say, waiting for him to unlock my side, “But not… no, I mean…”

 _Not by Fen._

He pulls his hair back into a wonky little half ponytail, “Do you want breakfast?”

“I think it’s ‘brunch’ now.”

“Semantics. Here, call Bela and tell her to meet us at Wade’s Café. They have the best reubens in town,” he hands me his phone.

“You have a text from her,” I say, opening it, “Oh. Lovely. It’s a dirty text.” _I refuse to say sext._

He laughs, “Read it to me.”

“No!”

Before pulling away from the curb, he looks at the screen, and laughs, “Oh, that woman.”

“What’s the deal with you two?”

“What deal?”

“You and Bela,” I just can’t wrap my brain around it. I would be so hurt if I walked out of a place and left someone who touched my chin cleft the way he did behind with his face full of someone else.

He looks at me sideways, “What’s your story?”

“My story?”

“Yeah. Romantic history. Bela told me there was a guy…”

“There was a guy.”

“Just one guy? Ever?”

He doesn’t sound judgy. And after all, he’s my new best friend, right? I can talk to him about this stuff because he’s my new best friend, and… _does he have a hickey?!?_

“Just one guy ever.”

“And what happened?”

“He, uh… he found Jesus.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah. Shit.”

“So he left you for Jesus? Tough thing about that guy is it’s pretty damn hard to compete.”

“Yeah.”

“Well that answers a few questions I had,” he shrugs, “And as for Isabela and me, I’m completely, utterly, madly, stupidly in love with her,” he says this with the flat conversational calm of someone giving directions, “but it would never work in a million years, so, we do this. And it works. And we’re happy.”

There’s no resentment, no hurt or angst in anything he says.

“And the sex is incredible. The sex alone is worth sticking around for. The love part, that’s just extra.”

The do seem happy. I’ll give them that. Nate, what small bit of him I could see in the tangle of duvet, seemed happy too.

 _Maybe they were on to something._

 _Maybe they’ve evolved._

 _Maybe I should evolve._

 _No…. I cannot be that evolved. I’m too stodgy. Er… traditional?_

 _Boring_ , Garrett, _the word you are ineptly searching for is boring._

I call her then, and then call Merrill with my own phone, and we convene at Wade’s. By that time, it’s late enough that we can only order lunch.

“If the three of you are here,” Andy says, sipping his second cup of coffee, “Who’s working at Bianca’s.”

“Ugh. Jory and Dave,” Isabela answers, stealing one of his fries.

“Who are Jory and Dave?”

“These two jagweeds. Have you ever talked to them?” she asks me and Merrill.

“No. Never. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen them.”

“I’ve seen them,” Merrill says, “I trained them. Poor Jory’s nice, but he’s got such bad nerves…”

“They’re miserable, so far as I can tell, and Varric only ever has them on shifts together. Which is fine by me. Because that means the three of us--”

“Four,” Andy says.

She puts her hand over his arm, “The _four_ of us can get together and talk about how Garrett is going to drill that adorable little hipster into the mattress.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” I put my hands up, ketchup between my first two fingers, “how did we jump all the way to drilling?”

“We’ve laid the groundwork,” she said, stealing another fry, “and now we have to build on it.”

“Build on it.”

“While the building is good, too,” she says, “You can’t wait too long.”

“Well, I’ll see him on Monday,” I say, “he doesn’t come in on Sundays.”

They strategize then, for a good hour, mostly without my input.

This feels nice though. Having groundwork. And I didn’t totally screw it up. By my standards, last night was a victory. Though, I mean… I think he was being nice… because some of the things I said were pretty damn awful.

But maybe that’s a good sign.

I’m definitely going to take it as a good sign.

“Dammit, Isabela, if you wanted fries you should have ordered your own!”

He looks annoyed, but she’s dragging her nails up and down on the skin of his forearm and it’s hard to be annoyed when someone is doing that.

“You can have some of mine, Andy,” Merrill scoops a few into her hand and drops them on his plate.

“Thanks, Merrill.”

 _Oh, Wingmen. What did I ever do without you?_

…

Sunday mornings are always pretty busy.

Bianca’s is a nice place to sit and read or talk over coffee for a few hours. It’s actually busier on the weekends, but it’s a pleasant Sunday-Morning kind of busy.

I’m very relaxed on Sundays. In no small part because it’s the one day that I work that I know, with certainty, that he won’t come in.

I have zero chance of making an ass out of myself on Sundays. At least with him. I could still make an ass out of myself with a lot of other customers. But it won’t keep me up at night the same way.

So, see, that’s why my brain is slow on the uptake.

I see the hair first.

I see it, bright and soft in the midmorning sunlight outside the glass doors. I see it. But it doesn’t register.

Maybe, and I’m only guessing, but maybe his existence on a Sunday morning doesn’t fully compute because he isn’t wearing his glasses.

I’ve never seen him without his glasses.

I don’t recognize him.

He could be anyone, really.

Any young, attractive guy with white hair.

And impossibly green eyes.

And white ink tattoos on his chin, and neck, and hands and… possibly everywhere else _oh, god, stop thinking about it.._

My brain is working on this conundrum so hard that I don’t even have it in me to get flustered.

“Hello. It’s Sunday!” I say. Stupidly.

Okay, well, I may not be flustered but I’m still awful.

He squints at me, “Yeah. Very true.”

This is all on him. He has done this. He has come in on a Sunday morning.

“Black coffee?”

I ask him. It’s all gone. All the structure is gone. Everything is all topsy-turvy and I want to barf.

“Uh,” he hesitates, “no. I thought, maybe, I’d try something else.”

“Oh?”

“Because it’s Sunday. You know.”

“Yeah, sure.”

 _No, I don’t know! I don’t know anything anymore._

There is one woman in line behind him, but she is held up by the cookie selection and is not a pressing threat.

“I, uh,” he looks at me, and says very quietly, “I can’t read the menu.”

“You can’t read?”

“The menu. I can _read_ ,” he wrinkles his nose ( _oh god, it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen_ ), “My glasses,” he touches his face, hovering where the thick black (and impossibly perfect) black frames normally are, “I broke my glasses. And I can’t read the menu without them. It's too far away.”

“Oh. Right,” the fact that they are real glasses only makes him more charming… and makes me, literally, the worst at everything. _I implied that he is illiterate?! Christ!_ , “Yeah. Oh, hey! You’re not wearing glasses. Well, what do you like?”

“Uhh…” he’s still here, that’s the important thing, we can still turn this around, Garrett, “Oh… just a, just a black coffee.”

I’ve ruined it. I’ve broken it!

 _Where the hell is Isabela, anyway?_

 _Why am I sweating so much??_

 _I’m not in control of the words that come out of my mouth anymore._

“I could make you my favorite thing. The thing that I like best. My favorite drink?” I actually squeak a little on the last word, like I’m fourteen.

“Oh. Yeah. That’d be… yeah.”

“Great!”

I start on the café breva, and feel this extraordinary sense of calm in the eye of the panic. This must be what it’s like when mothers can spontaneously lift cars off of their children. Like… my brain has let go and my body just does what it needs to do.

And it needs to make Fen a café breva.

I pour in the half and half, making a delicate leaf in the foam.

I may not know human interaction, and my love life might be a desolate apocalyptic plain of misery… but, dammit, I know coffee! And foam. And leaves.

I had it to him, and only then do I realize it’s in a mug, rather than a to-go cup. I’ve basically forced him to stay here, instead of running away.

He tosses his head, moving hair out of his eyes, and takes the mug.

“Thanks, Garrett.”

Fuhhh….

“How much?”

“$1.20.”

Not it isn’t. That’s a five dollar cup of foamy heaven.

“Really?”

“Yeah. On Sundays. $1.20.”

“I might have to come in on Sundays more often then,” he smiles and pays, and then finds an empty seat far, far away from the counter.

I’m watching him while I serve the cookie-lady behind him.

Before he drinks, I see him take out his iphone and snap a quick picture of the leaf in the foam.

I make a strangled weird kind of groaning noise.

“You okay?” Isabela materializes, finally next to me, boxing cookies.

“Where the hell were you?”

She smiles coyly.

“Rule Number Four. Sometimes Wingmen keep secrets.”

I don’t care. Whatever. She can do whatever she wants.

Fen sits and drinks his café breva quietly, reading Moby Dick with his nose really, really close to the page, licking foam from his upper lip, and all is right in the world.

Even though it’s Sunday.


	7. Chapter 7

When I was a kid, I loved Halloween more than anything.

I had nine years of only-childhood, and my dad would take me Trick-or-Treating every year. He dressed up. Always. Whatever I asked him to wear, he’d wear it. Even if it was humiliating. Once, I asked him to go as the planet Saturn. He made the costume himself and wore it all night until the rings broke when he sat down.

As I outgrew Trick-or-Treating and Carver and Bethany grew into it, I started taking them myself.

I, too, wore whatever costume they wanted.

Unfortunately, the dynamic was slightly different between siblings… and they (mostly Carver) made it a point of honor to make sure I went out of the house in the most embarrassing, horrifyingly inappropriate costume possible. Every year. I finally stopped… because I was an adult and I wasn’t about to let a couple of nine year olds humiliate me.

That… and I went away to college.

I mean, I took a stand too.

But also moved away.

Which is why, now, I hate costumes. Loathe them. They’re fine for other people to wear… people can do what they want. I won’t stop anyone from being a ghost or a slutty bumblebee or whatever they want.

But, as for me… I haven’t worn a Halloween costume in almost ten years.

I explain this to Isabela as she drags me into a warehouse on a Saturday afternoon.

“But we need costumes for work!”

I have been snookered into this.

Isabela is too excited about the whole thing.

Varric decreed that not only would the Halloween daytime hours be a costume and decoration fest, but we would hold a party in the shop after. He was thrilled to be hosting a party, and had invited the Theirins and instructed us to invite whoever we'd like, provided they were interesting and adhered to the mandatory costumes-required dress code.

I had, in a truly inspiring act of ballsy audacity (okay, ballsy for me) mentioned the costume party to Fen on a Sunday ( _he comes in on Sundays now. It’s definitely a thing. Twice. Two Sundays. He’s ordered the Sunday Special. It... doesn't exist for anyone but him. I'd argue that makes it more special. Twice. I made a starburst in the foam the second time. It was pretty nice. I’m not bragging… I’m just… I mean, it was a nice looking starburst._ ). He seemed pretty non-plussed with the whole costume party idea. Not that I blame him.

Not one bit.

He’d been very dismissive about Halloween in general, and while I am positively thrilled to find out we legitimately have something in common, I am not optimistic about him coming to the party. I was sure he’d still come in during the day, I mean, it would be a Friday afterall.

But… I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that there was a part of me dying to see what costume he would wear.

If he wore costumes.

 _I mean, not that I’m, like, sitting at home fantasizing about him in costumes._

 _No._

 _Oh, god, I’m a pervert._

The store smells like rubber.

I experience a vivid flashback to the claustrophobic interior of a gorilla mask that Bethany had insisted I wear when she was seven. My face smelled like that mask for, I swear, the next two weeks.

It’s a chain of stores that pop up in late September, crawling into empty banks and industrial spaces to sell all this Halloween… stuff. _The Black Emporium – Halloween Superstores._

Their slogan is, “Change your face! It’s Halloween!” which I find really annoying.

I bury my hands in my pockets as Isabela pushes the button on a display of a rotting corpse crawling out from under a Styrofoam tombstone. It lurches for my foot and groans, LED eyes flashing red.

I jump back.

“Poor kitten!” she laughs, “You’re a big scaredy cat!”

“I am not. I’m brave. Very brave. Last night I killed a spider in the shower… like it was nothing.”

“Your bloodlust knows no bounds…” she purrs and leads me by the elbow further into the seemingly endless cavern of the store.

“Hey, what are you two doing here?”

I see Andy’s head over the top of a rack of (ugh) fake plastic boobs and butts. I see only the top of Merrill’s head. She hops up, peeking over the rack, spyhopping like an enthusiastic little whale, “Garrett!!"

“We’re here to find Merrill a costume,” Andy said, “currently we’ve narrowed it down to being Harry Potter. Or a tree.”

“Ooh,” I say, laughing, “what kind of a tree, Merrill?”

“I was thinking a willow… but… I not sure! It’s such a big decision!”

Isabela, meanwhile, has tied the plastic shell of a muscular male torso onto herself.

“I’m glad you two are here,” she says, adjusting the shiny pectorals over her chest, and I know she’s trying to line up the unhealthily-reddish pink plastic nipples with her own, “I feel like kitten is going to put up a stink about trying things on.”

“I have to--” I groan, “you didn’t say I had to try anything on! Can’t I just buy a thing in a bag? That,” I point, “Can’t I just buy that?”

“You want to wear a grim reaper costume?” she looks at me as if I have just said the most offensive thing imaginable, “a long shapeless black robe that covers your face?”

I shrug.

“He’s hopeless,” Andy says, laughing, and shaking his head, “I’ve never in my life met anyone like him.”

“Hey!” I’m feeling defensive. They’re ganging up on me. The wingmen have turned!

“Garrett,” Isabela says this softly, “Halloween is a gift to our sex lives. It allows us to dress in a manner that we would never normally dress. We can be whatever we want, for one night. And we can drink, copious amounts of alcohol in costumes. It’s the ultimate inhibition suppression… because not only are you socially lubricated, but even an awkward, helpless scaredy cat can wear something sexy and play a character. Maybe one who isn’t so… scaredy.”

“You know, it’s really hard to take you seriously, at all, when you’re wearing that.”

“My eyes are up here,” she says, pointing at her face, “Wingman Rule Number Five: Who you are is perfect and wonderful and I love you to pieces... but sometimes you should try being someone else. Come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll all try things on.”

“Sure. Fine,” Andy says, encouragingly, “I’ve already got my costume, but… for moral support, I will try on costumes.”

“Thanks,” I say dryly.

The dressing rooms are little more than large hastily assembled crates with white sheets tacked on for privacy. We approach with arm loads of plastic bags.

The attendant, a little boy probably in some serious violation of labor laws, waves us in without looking up from his handheld game thing. I want to call it a Gameboy. But… I know that’s wrong.

There are two larger “rooms” while the rest are occupied by giggling girls trying on sexy insect costumes. Andy I go into one, and Bela and Merrill go into another.

 _This is fine._

 _I mean… it’s fine._

 _I can change in front of him. It’s fine._

 _Except that it isn’t._

Clearly more comfortable in his own skin than I am, he’s stripped down to boxer briefs before the white sheet even closes all the way.

It’s not that I’m uncomfortable with Andy. It’s just that I’m uncomfortable with anybody.

He’s shimmying into a pair of polyester Han Solo pants when he realizes I’ve not moved.

“Garrett?”

“Andy.”

“Don’t… worry. Nothing untoward is going to happen here. Sexy as the aroma of dirty feet inside a packing crate is.”

“Huh? Oh. God! Umm.. no… it’s not that. I, just…” I feel like I did in high school gym. When I was already well over six feet tall. And in the locker room, I looked like an enormous pale, freckled praying mantis compared to everyone else who was normal sized.

“I’m… shy.”

He looks at me bewildered, “Do you have some kind of… oddness under all those layers?”

“What?”

“Parasitic twin?”

“I don’t even know what that is--”

“The mark of the beast?”

“Whaa?”

“I’m sure you’re fine. I won’t judge. I’ve seen it all.”

I swallow hard and drop my armload of costumes on the church-basement chair inside the room.

 _Okay. Right. He won’t judge. He’s Andy. My new best friend._

 _Jacket off._

 _Scarf off._

 _Thermal off._

 _It’s fine._

 _T-shirt…_

I realize that as he’s adjusting his vest, he is surreptitiously watching me.

“Hey.”

“You’ve got me interested now. I’m anticipating all manner of deformity.”

I sigh, and screwing my spider-killer courage to the sticking place, pull my t-shirt off.

His eyebrows raise a little, but he makes no comment as he finishes putting on the belt of his costume.

“What is taking you girls so long in here?” Isabela pushes aside the sheet.

I yelp.

“Garrett Hawke,” she snatches my forearms which I am pathetically trying to cover my chest with, praying mantis, praying mantis, “Come here.”

“Isabela…” she’s dragging me out of the crate, beyond the sheet that mocks me viciously as I lose all my privacy.

There is a mirror in the hall of sorts created by the dressing rooms. One dusty mirror, propped up against the wall.

“You are fucking gorgeous,” she says against my back, pushing me towards the mirror.

 _I’m really not. I’m too tall and too gawky and--_

“I had no idea you were hiding this under all those sweaters,” she pulls down on my wrists, “Look at you!”

“Oooh, Garrett!” I hear Merrill behind me, “you’re so much more muscular than I thought you’d be!”

There are girls giggling. _GIGGLING_.

 _I’m going to die here._

 _And then, when I get to the afterlife, I’ll be stuck in a limbo just like this for hundreds of years. I don’t know what I did wrong… I jaywalk a lot._

 _Is that a sin? Or just a misdemeanor?_

“Will you please let me get a shirt?”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” she says, “let me try one thing real quick, okay?”

She leaves me there and I see in the mirror as she darts out of the dressing room area, wearing a pirate wench costume that I’m pretty sure is meant to be worn with pants.

My other two wingmen stand there, looking at my torso.

“Come on, guys…”

Andy is leaning against the wall, looking every inch like a barefoot Han Solo. And wearing a shirt. For which, best friend or not, I loathe him.

Merrill is wearing… I think it’s a geisha costume, but one obviously meant for a much larger person.

“Do you work out much, Garrett?” she asks.

“No.”

“Really?”

“A little.”

“It shows. You’re lovely.”

“Thanks.”

"Not bulky at all. But not scrawny either."

"Uhh..."

“And hairy.”

I am once again in the sixth grade, on swimming day, and my chest hair -- that’s right, I had chest hairs in the sixth grade because I’m a monster --are the topic of every conversation had over kickboards as we paddle laps back and forth.

I wanted to drown then and I want to drown now.

Isabela returns holding some bulky looking plastic thing in her hands.

“What is that?”

“Armor.”

I stand there and let her slip the plastic thing over my head, situating it on my shoulders. It’s like football shoulder pads, but hollow and studded with fake gold detail.

“Oh, god,” she says, strapping me in, “You’re getting this.”

“What?!”

“It looks. So. Good.”

There is a general murmur of agreement from the peanut gallery.

“This is a little… _Spartacus: Blood and Sand_ , isn’t it?”

“Ugh! I love that show!”

“Me too,” Andy says.

“Me too! You look a little like him, Garrett,” Merrill steps closer, tapping the armor with her fingernail.

“Okay… look… we all love Spartacus: Blood and Sand…” I turn to face them. Three eager faces. Totally genuine. A little bit pervy. But… my pervy, genuine, eager friends. “Okay. I’ll get this. But! I’m wearing it with a shirt. I think there are health codes.”

Isabela claps, “You really do look great, kitten. You look so good I hardly even looked at Andy-Han-Solo, which,” she turns, “by the way, is a personal fantasy that’s never yet been fulfilled.”

“Noted.”

Merrill stokes a hand down my stomach, “Your body hair is so smooth and shiny. Do you condition it?”

We change back into real clothes, and buried under my protective and comforting layers, I buy the stupid gladiator armor. And a skirt thing. This is happening.

Isabela buys her wench costume, Merrill buys a puzzlingly large pile of things, and Andy quietly buys the Han Solo costume at a different register.

It is then, and only then, that I realize that Fen will see me in this.

Wearing plastic gladiator armor.

That night, I do enough push ups before bed that I can barely lift my arms in the morning.

I mean… if I’m going to do this… I’d better do this right.


	8. Chapter 8

After being surrounded by the three of them virtually non-stop, I find myself puttering around my apartment kind of at a loss at actually being alone.

I clean the kitchen counters and the bathroom. I watch about an episode and a half of Mythbusters with Bradley and make myself a Denver omlette for dinner. And I have a beer.

I just feel… antsy. It’s that weird adjustment period of relearning how to be alone.

I used to be alone most of the time. If I wasn’t at work or at my mother’s house being physically assaulted by crates of smut.

Hmm.

The box of Carver’s pornography is in the trunk of my car and has been for two days. Driving around with it, I’m convinced that I’m going to be rear-ended or something and this enormous box of nothing but oiled, glistening tits is going to be revealed to the world. It’s like I’m a mobster and I’m driving around with a dead body in there until I can make it out to the gorge. I get shifty eyed behind the wheel. Paranoid.

I need to just take it to the dump is what I need to do. He still hasn’t responded to my texts.

I check my phone.

No new messages. No next texts.

The world has once again forgotten about ol’ Hermit Hawke.

I hear footsteps on the stairs outside and then Isabela’s door opening, her voice muffled and indistinct but welcoming. Her door squeaks. The landlady really needs to do something about it.

Isabela and I both call her the Dragon-Lady and I'm secretly terrified that she'll hear us saying it one day and put a gypsy curse on us. But she is legitimately intimidating… to me anyway. And I know I’d rather just fix things around the place myself rather than call her.

It’s worse when she sends her daughter—

Oh, fantastic.

I’ve been in Isabela’s place numerous times (mostly for Project Runway). I know for a fact that her bed is directly over my couch.

And… apparently she has not rearranged her furniture since I was over. Overhead, I hear what I know is Isabela’s headboard rocking against the wall, accompanied by the creaking of her box spring.

I can hear a muffled male voice. _Moaning._

 _Okay. That’s enough of that._

I stand up.

Bradley regards the sounds coming from Isabela’s apartment with a twitching ear.

I hear the male voice again and _twitch_ in my own way.

“Okay! Great! That’s just great!”

 _It’s, uh… it’s been a long time._

 _I’d rather not think about how long._

 _I’d really…_

 _Three years._

I imagine myself grabbing a broom and hitting the ceiling with it, trying to get them to quiet down… or put a pillow between the headboard and the wall… or… just stop having more sex than me.

More sex than zero sex?

 _I will not be a crazy old shut in._

 _I will not get the broom._

 _I will take a shower. It is as far away from ground zero-sex here. And the water will be loud. And hot. And._

And I’m so pathetic that a few garbled moans from Mystery-Buddy upstairs and I’m half hard.

 _Okay. Fine._

 _Showers are nice._

 _Showers are soothing._

I like my shower. It’s very tall, which for me is incredibly important.

I spent a month researching showerheads and finally decided on this one.

Aesthetically, it’s beautiful. And functionality wise it’s a dream. Like taking a shower in the rain… but… not cold and windy.

An actual rain shower would be really uncomfortable and not very functional.

Mine is better.

The tub, like all tubs, is too small for me to really ever take a bath in. But that’s fine. I’m not a bath guy.

I’m a shower guy.

I get in and let the water run down my back and over my shoulders.

This is perfect. Exactly what I needed. I lather up and--

 _Oh._

Well. That feels good too.

Soap and water and skin. It’s just good. Like a Denver omlette of pleasurable sensations, all melting together and a little bit spicy.

 _Okay. Wait._

I get my hair wet, push it back from my face.

 _I need a haircut. It’s getting swoopy… which is a bad thing._

Okay. And…

 _Oh._

I think about smooth shoulders.

 _Why do I always start with the shoulders?_

It’s got to be because that’s what I see. I’m tall, so I’m always above. I see shoulders in a way that other people don’t. People say a lot more with their shoulders than they realize.

I find them revealing. Sexy. Sexy in that way that anything that really gives a person away is sexy. Because it's like seeing them behind the mask.

Seb--

 _Oh, come on! Can’t I do this once without bringing him into it?!_

His shoulders were tan but still freckled.

 _His dark red hair. And--_

I groan and it echoes off my ultra clean tiles.

He did have an amazing voice. I’ll give him that. And the accent.

 _There was that time on the stairs in the theater building. Oh, god. In the middle of the day. A Tuesday or a Thursday. But no one would need to come up there. And he had me sprawled out, his hand on my cock, his fingers in my mouth. They tasted like barbecue sauce._

 _Which makes sense because it was after lunch._

 _‘Don’t be loud,’ he said in my ear, ‘they’ll hear you in the lobby.’_

 _And then, just after that, was the first time he’d ever used his mouth and I thought I died._

 _I didn’t._

 _I just came. Immediately._

 _And everywhere._

 _But it was incredible._

And now I’m doing this. Wanking in earnest.

My arm is sore from now nightly push-ups but I don't care.

Oh, it feels good. Wanking. Wanking is a good thing.

I lean forward, my forearm against the tile, my head on my arm.

 _He’s in here, too._

 _This is his hand, not mine._

 _It’s smaller than mine._

 _Rougher?_

Oh. God.

 _Yes, rougher._

 _He’s behind me, and smooth and wet and slick and hot._

 _And he’s going to make me come._

 _“Oh, fuck.”_

”Oh, fuck!”

 _He’s holding my chest with his other hand, like leverage._

 _“Harder.”_

”Harder!”

 _“Hmmm…”_

 _That sexy, throaty, deep sound._

 _I look down and watch his hand--_

Not mine.

 _\--white ink in thin lines that go all the way up._

 _And all the way down._

 _I want to see him._

 _“Tighter.”_

 _I want to see water in his black, thick perfect eyelashes._

 _I want to see him._

 _He won’t let me turn around._

 _He holds me in place._

 _And I hear, “Hmmm…” against my back, my shoulder blades._

 _But now it’s not a thoughtful noise._

 _I don’t know what it is._

 _“Fen!”_

“F-Fen!”

 **I’mgonnacome, I’mgonnacome, I’mgonnacome.**

 _“I’m…”_

 _His legs are against my legs._

 _And I can feel his--_

 **I’mgonnacome, I’mgonnacome.**

 _“Don’t be loud…”_

 _I feel his teeth against my ribs._

 _“They’ll hear you in the lobby.”_

"There’s no lobby in my shower, Fen! That doesn’t make sense."

 _I don’t care. His fingers are in my mouth._

 _They taste like coffee._

 **I’mgonnacome--**

“Ahh! Fuck!”

When I resurface into the world, I just kind of sag there against the tile. And I’m blind.

And my ears ring.

And it’s just me.

And my big freckled, untattooed, unremarkable hand around my cock.

Just me.

Garrett Hawke, literal wanker.

Eventually, my vision returns. I shampoo. Feeling self conscious I rub a little conditioner into my chest hair. It was the extra and I don’t normally do it.

Really.

I feel good. Like my circulation has drastically improved.

My legs shake a little as I step out, and grab my towel.

I feel a little bad. Like I’ve imposed on him.

But… it’s not like this is the first time, either.

It’s fine! Right?

I head out into the living room, grabbing my phone on the way.

Two new texts.

 **From: Carver  
Body:  
I want it. Don’t you dare dump it. I’ll be home for thxgiving.**

“Thanksgiving!” I grouse, pulling the towel off and drying my hair.

 **From: Andy  
Body: bela and I ordered a pizza. wanna come up?**

Well then. Mystery-Moaning-Buddy is Andy is he?

 _That’s about right then, isn’t it._


	9. Chapter 9

As it turns out, wearing plastic armor all day is even less comfortable than you’d imagine. Even if you, like a civilized person in the food service industry, wear a t-shirt underneath. It looks silly, sure, but I'd rather look silly than give people lattes with a fine dusting of chest hair.

Over the course of the day, I manage to knock seven bags of coffee off the shelves, get stuck in the doorway to the storage room, and I think that by 2:30 I’ve started to chafe. Isabela insisted as we opened that I add a sword and belt to the costume. So I did. And I’ve been accidentally hitting her in the leg and thigh region all day with it.

Accidentally. Absolutely not out of any kind of passive aggressive venting.

At 9:04 am, however, I am still pretty comfortable. Standing like a sentinel at the register, ready, Isabela behind me cleaning out a filter in the sink.

“Ask him to the party.”

“Huh?”

“Invite him to the party. This is the last chance you’re going to get, kitten. It’s happening tonight.”

“I don’t think he wants to come,” I shrug, “he doesn’t like Halloween.”

The door opens.

“Neither do you,” she walks away with the wet filter in her hands.

Today he is wearing a black slouchy beanie that covers most of his hair.

I smile and wave as he walks in.

I have, of course, completely forgotten what I am wearing.

His eyebrows remind me. And so does his smirk.

 _Oh, god…_

“ _Gladiator in arena consilium capit_ ,” he says, and for literally about five seconds I think I can’t breathe.

“That’s… Latin?” I recover.

“Yeah.”

“You know Latin?”

 _Oh, Jesus._

“Some.”

“What does it mean?”

“Uhh… The gladiator is formulating his plan in the arena. Which… for a gladiator is too late.”

“Yeah. You’d… probably do better planning out your strategy way ahead of time. Because, you know, in the heat of the moment… you’d…”

 _Seriously?!_

“Forget.”

“Yes! Exactly.”

“Hmm…” that throat noise. _That throat speaks Latin, Garrett._

“Black coffee?”

“Yeah. Please.”

I pour, “Hey, umm…”

 _If I was a gladiator, a good gladiator, I would have planned this out ahead of time. I would have a strategy. I would… I would be Spartacus._

 _“I don’t know if you have any… plans.”_

 __Be Spartacus._ _

I look over my enormous plastic shoulder.

“But, umm, if you don’t… we’re having that party here… tonight.”

“Oh?”

 _BE SPARTACUS._

“Yeah. You should… if you wanted to… you should… come.”

He pays for his coffee.

He’s said nothing.

 _Of course he--_

“What time?”

 _Oh, shit._

“Uhh… should really be going by 10:00. I’ll be here, at, like… 8:00. Setting up.”

“Should I…” another customer comes in, and he turns to look at her. He has white ink on the back of his neck, too. I have never noticed. It’s there in a place that seems, abstractly of course, like a perfect place to kiss.

I am gripping the register between my hands.

“Okay, uh…” he smiles, turning back to me, “yeah, maybe I’ll…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Well… Happy Halloween.”

He doesn’t say it back. But he smiles as he sips his coffee, turning away and heading out past a middle aged woman dressed like a lady bug.

Isbela launches herself at me, and I think that in doing so give that Ladybug an eye full.

"Kitten! That was... I am so proud of you!"

It was definitely a smile.

 _Not a smirk._


	10. Chapter 10

Here’s the thing.

I’ve been really, really drunk ten times in my life.

Once, not long after the breakup, I got obliterated at an Irish pub and started speaking only in Polish. But no one else spoke Polish… so they didn’t really know if I was speaking actual Polish or not.

I do not know Polish.

I speak a little conversational Italian.

That’s it.

Well, and English. Most of the time.

Tonight, at 12:32 am, I know that this is Drunk in My Life Time #11.

He didn’t show up.

But. Whatever. _Refocus, Garrett_. It’s a great party, nice and classy just the way that you’d expect Varric to do it. He spent a lot of money. He rented a projector and a screen and has been showing classic Monster Movies all night. Which is great!

He also spent a lot of money on alcohol.

A lot.

And I drank.

A lot.

I wasn’t being, like, a sad drunk. I was egged on. It was fun. We were all doing it.

I just don’t exactly know when everyone else stopped.

But I’m handling myself extremely well.

No one can tell that I’m drunk.

Not. A. One.

I’m standing by myself. Harry Potter hands me a glass of water.

“That’s a lot of ice!” I say, drinking.

“I thought you might need some, Garrett,” he says, sounding very much like Merrill, “You’re a little sweaty right now.”

“Oh, I am, Harry,” I laugh, because I’m really funny, “and I am… _hairy_. Oh!”

Harry Potter has a stuffed white owl on his shoulder, and I want to pet it.

So I do.

It’s then that The Big Lebowski comes up to us.

“Have you ever petted an owl?” I ask him.

“Yeah, of course I have.”

“It’s nice! I should do it more often,” I’m drinking my water and the ice is really cold and my teeth hurt, “I need a dentist.”

“Hey, there, Spartacus,” he says, “how you doing, buddy?”

“I’m great! This water is great! This owl… have I met this owl before?”

“Where’s Izzy?” Harry asks The Big Lebowski.

“Over there, making friends,” he sips a White Russian (of course he does!).

“Friends!” I turn, but he grabs my arm.

“Yup. And we’re going to let her.”

“I like friends,” I let him pull me back, “Are you making friends?”

“Merrill was,” The Big Lebowski’s eyebrows are really animated.

“Oh, stop it. I was just talking to him.”

“Him?! Him who?” _Oh, that owl._ “Hoo… hoo…”

“That guy. A ginger.”

“I thought he was nice.”

“Hoo?”

“That guy, over there,” Lebowski points at a short man with a red beard and a hat with plastic horns.

“Is he a Viking?”

“He is tonight.”

“Harry, you thought that a Viking was _nice_?! Don’t you know anything about Vikings?!”

“I did a presentation about them in school. Once. I made a tiny boat--”

 _I have never heard anything as funny as that in my life._

I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying, crying!.

“Okay, Sparty,” Lebowski has an arm around my shoulder, “I think I might have underestimated how seriously you took the whole, ‘Have a few drinks and relax,’ thing.”

“I gave him water,” Harry says.

“And I am drinking it! You know what this water needs, though? **A tiny boat**!!”

“I think I’m going to take him outside for a minute. A little bit of fresh air.”

“I think the air in here is very fresh.”

“You would.”

“What about our new friends? Are you making new friends tonight?”

Lebowski is guiding me towards something shaped like a door.

“I’m just sticking with the old friends tonight,” he says, opening the door in front of me and I feel like I’m falling through it, “You’ve got me all to yourself.”

“Oh,” _I’m outside_ , “Do I want you all to myself?”

He laughs, and pushes me towards the little bench. Benches are cute. What did people do before benches? Where did the sit outside? Where did they wait for buses?

I sit down.

“I’m hot.”

“It’s cooler out here. You’ll cool down.”

“Help me,” I am wearing a lot of things right now. Too many.

I try to pull my shirt off.

But, oh god! I’m stuck. I’m stuck in the shirt and the shoulder pads.

“Help me!”

“Okay, calm down,” I’m blind in the shirt, but I feel Lebowski’s hands unsnapping the shoulder pads in the back and pulling them off of me.

I take off my shirt.

“I can breathe!”

“Where’s your water?”

“I lost it. I’d like another scotch and soda, please.”

“Maybe in a little bit, okay?”

I sigh heavily and flop back, “Okay, fine. Sit down and talk to me. Tell me about your rug.”

He sits, “My rug?”

“Yeah! It tied the room together!”

“You’re adorable. And wasted. How did you get this drunk?”

“I drank.”

“Oh, yeah, that explains it.”

 _Oh… This isn’t The Big Lebowski. It’s Andy! My best friend Andy._

“Hey!”

“What?”

“You wrote a book.”

He laughs, Andy… not The Big Lebowski. Just Andy in a Big Lewbowski costume. His robe looks very soft and I wonder if it's his actual bathrobe. “Did Bela tell you about that?”

“No. I saw it. In your apartment. When Nate was there. _Naked_.”

I whispered that last part, in case it’s a secret he wants to keep.

“Oh… yeah… I wrote a book. A few, actually.”

“What about?”

“Well, I wrote one good book, which no one bought. And then… I had bills and so I started writing bad books, and people buy those enough to keep a roof over my head.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying to me right now.”

He smiles, “You ever heard of _Justice and Vengeance_?”

“The… ideas?”

“No. The trash crime slash thriller series that you can buy at the airport and finish in the air between San Fransisco and Chicago.”

“Yes.”

“I write those.”

“You write _Justice and Vengeance_?!”

“Yeah.”

“I thought another guy wrote those.”

“I use a different name.”

“Why?”

“I’m… a different person when I write them? Because I’m embarrassed by them? I don’t know.”

“Hmmm…” I pat his knee, “I’m sorry you don’t like your popular books.”

“It’s okay.”

“Hey,” I look down at myself, “I’ve lost my costume.”

“Most of it, yeah.”

“It’s Halloween, I should put it back on.”

“You want me to help?”

“Yes, please.”

He picks up my shirt.

“No, forget that. Just this. I’m too hot for that shirt.”

He laughs, lifting my armor, “What happened to modest Garrett?”

“I’m,” I guffaw, “My temperature is too high to wear that shirt. I’m modest! I’m so modest. You don’t even know how modest I am.”

“I believe you.”

“Does it look bad?”

The plastic passes over my head, and he’s adjusting it when he looks at me and says, really seriously, “No. You look great.”

“Would you fuck me?”

“Modest, huh?”

“It’s a… scientific inquiry.”

“For science? Hell yes I would.”

“That’s good to know,” then, all of a sudden, I feel sad.

 _Why am I sad?_

 _What’s happened to me?_

“He didn’t show up.”

“No. He didn’t. His loss,” he stands up, and he’s tall, not as tall as me though… no one is as tall as me, “I’m going to get you more water, okay.”

“Why didn’t he show up?”

“You said he didn’t like costumes, right? That’s probably it. Varric was very specific about the mandatory costume policy.”

“Yeah…”

“Stay here, I’ll be back.”

He goes.

I don’t stay.

I follow him back in.

Harry Potter (who, clearly, is actually Merrill) has taken her owl off of her shoulder and is holding it against her chest and talking to a very red, very drunk man.

There is a mostly naked pirate girl talking to a tan blonde guy. _I know that pirate!_

I start walking towards her.

A wet hand on my chest sends me back.

“Hey!”

“Hey, yourself Garrett,” it’s Andy, “I’m not just your wingman, I’m her wingman too. And you really need to not be a cock-block right now.”

“Cock-Block!” I’m laughing.

 _Why is everything at this party so funny?!_

“Drink this,” he pushes a glass of water into my hand. I take it and drink it in three massive gulps.

“Hey, I’m think about heading out soon. Our teammates seem to have partnered off. So. I’ll drop you off at home, okay?”

“No. I don’t want to go home. Let’s hang out.”

“I don’t know how great of an idea that is.”

“What? Why?”

“How did you get his shirt off?” The pirate girl, my beautiful Isabela, is standing next to him. “Seriously. I want to hear every detail of that story.”

“I was hot.”

“You are hot, kitten!”

“You!” I pat her head.

“No luck with Zev?” Andy asks.

“No. Not tonight.”

He looks over his shoulder, “That’s too bad.”

“He’ll be back.”

Merrill is there then, scowling behind her round glasses.

“What happened to beardy?”

“He’s married!”

“Oh, sweet-thing!” Isabela hugs her.

I pat her owl.

“Well…” Andy says, “this was a bust then. Want to call it a night?”

“No! We’re going to go to your place, and we’re going to drink alcohol and coffee and stay up until the sun rises. And then it will be November. Wait. It’s November right now! Let’s go.”

I pass them, heading for the door.

I bow, with my fist to my chest, to Varric as I pass him.

The three of them follow me.

I open the door.

I almost run into the person standing there.

But he’s in dark clothes at night without a reflector or anything and that’s not really my fault is it.

“Hey!”

 _Oh, shit!_

“You’re here!” I nearly ran over him.

I hug him. Which is completely _mental_. But I do it anyway. It's cold outside but he feels warm. No, _hot_.

And while he doesn't hug me back, he doesn't punch me in the solar plexus or mace me or anything.

 _I'm going to count this as a drunk win._

He steps back, his head down, when I let him go, “Yeah. Had to… get a costume,” it doesn’t look like much of a costume. A dark thermal shirt and black gloves. A plastic hypodermic needle.

“Are you Dexter?! That’s freaking awesome!”

“I… yeah. I’m Dexter.”

I can see him in the light of the string Jack-O-Lantern lights Varric had me put on the awning. His eyes are really big. Have they always been that big?

He’s looking at my chest.

Because he’s chest level.

And… I don’t have a shirt on.

He’s been looking for a while.

Thank god I did push-ups for a month. I'm officially doing push-ups forever.

The door opens behind me, then closes again immediately.

“Are you… leaving?”

He looks sad! Don't be sad!

“Yeah. But, we’re going to my best friend’s place right now, to drink coffee and stuff and watch the sunrise.”

“Oh.”

“You should come with us!”

 _Thank you, alcohol, for shutting down my stupid, willful brain and letting my mouth say this thing outloud even though I already, drunkenly, kind of regret--_

“Oh… okay. Sure.”

 _Oh my fucking god._

The door opens behind me. I hear keys.

“I call shot-gun,” Isabela says behind me.

“That is a roomy backseat,” Andy says, “come on then. Hey, Fen.”

“I’m driving your car, Andy?”

“I think that’s for the best, Mr. Potter.”

“Okay. Come on then. Ooh, this’ll be fun. A sleepover... without sleeping!”

I think I see Fen twitch out of the corner of my eye.

I think for a second that he's not going to come.

That would make sense. I've abandoned sense. Completely.

But he _does_ walk next to me towards the car.

He _does_ let my drunk arm brush against his in a totally not accidental accidental way.

And when we’re in the backseat, he sits in the middle, because he has the shortest legs, and thank god for my praying mantis legs because I have no choice, no choice!, but to let our legs touch.

I must look smug. But I don't care. It's dark in the car and no one can really see me... not even Fen who is wedged in next to be, very quiet, with his gloved hands folded between his knees.


	11. Chapter 11

Andy’s place is nice. I like it. It smells like books and dude.

Two things I like.

He walks in ahead of the rest of us, flips on the lights and really quickly kicks some clothes out of the middle of the room under his unmade bed.

Such a big bed. Without a Nate this time. But with a really big, really fluffy down comforter. White sheets. White pillows.

Well, all white except for that one manky blue pillow.

Manky pillow notwithstanding, I want to sit on that cozy bed.

 _No, I really want to run across the room and take a flying leap and fall into that bed._

 _And I want Fen to fall next to me._

 _Fen._

He’s actually here, standing right next to me, his face totally unreadable and calm. And perfect. And kind of foreign looking and really familiar at the same time. _He’s put his new glasses back on, and watching him do it, I don’t know! I found the action of him putting on glasses just, like, hypnotic. Erotic? Are glasses erotic? Is that a kink I have? Maybe it is._

Maybe it’s just him though.

Maybe watching him turn pages of a book would be just as erotic.

No, I know it was. I watched him read last Sunday. It was the sexiest page turning I’ve ever seen.

He runs a hand through his hair and tucks it behind his ears ( _which are adorable and big… I love big ears_ ) and looks up at me with total freaking calm on his face.

Well at least he’s calm!

I feel my heart clugging in my chest, missing beats. I’m really cold now.

 _Why is this apartment so cold? Oh, yeah, that’s right… I’m more or less naked. And standing next to Fen who is really wearing the fuck out of that thermal shirt and… and not wearing anything underneath it… and, okay, calm as he may be, he’s definitely cold too--_

“You three make yourselves comfortable. There are extra blankets in the cupboard there… Bela…” Andy smiles at her, and he looks kind a golden buoy of calm in the sea of my anxiety, “you know where everything is. Figure we’ll stay here for a bit then head up to the roof. Garrett, want to help me make the coffee and get other drinks going?”

 _Coffee! Oh, god, yes. I know coffee! I’m a coffee professional!_

“Y-yeah!”

I smell matches and candles behind me. _Candles! This is bordering on romantic._

I follow Andy into the kitchen area, separated from them by a folding screen that wasn’t here the last time I was.

“Andy--”

“Calm down!” he whispers, cutting off my whine, “You’re doing great, He’s here. He looks great. You look…”

He looks at me.

“Are you feeling more sober?”

“Yes!”

“Sobriety is your enemy right now,” he says, pulling a bottle of vodka out of his freezer and pinching two shot glasses with Big Ben etched on the sides between his fingers.

He pours carefully measured shots, “Here.”

“I…”

“I’m not trying to get you wasted. Just… keeping you buzzed. Maybe leaning towards drunk. Drunk-Garrett can handle this. Listen, I can see that brain of yours starting to spin behind those pretty blue eyes and that’s not going to do you any favors right now.” He hands me the shot glass, and keeps the other, “Nostrovia.”

I hate vodka.

But my buoy drinks and so, then, do I.

“You’re a big fucker,” he grins, pouring two more shots, “Again.”

I drink, swallow and shiver.

 _My nipples are so hard. I'm very aware of them. More aware of them, I think than I have ever been. Why did I leave my shirt at Bianca's?!_

He’s pulling out bottles and mugs. I make coffee, and start feeling calm as I breathe in the comforting smell of grounds, and feel the warmth of the pot between my hands, the heat of vodka in my… in myself.

“Andy!” I whisper.

“What?”

“What if I forgot how?”

“How what?”

“How to do it.”

“You’ll remember,” he’s not really listening.

I swallow, my mouth kind of numb and dry, “It’s been three years.”

“Jesus Christ!”

He doesn’t whisper.

“Shh!” I swat at him.

“I’m sorry. Sorry! I didn’t realize…” he looks stunned, and kind of sad, like I just told him his great aunt who he never saw really but who sent him a $25 check for his birthday every year had just died. “Jesus, Garrett.”

“And I haven’t even kissed anyone in two years.”

“You’re…” he sighs.

I hear the low murmur of Fen’s voice and the soft purr of Isabela’s on the other side of the screen.

“I’m gonna screw this up.”

“No you’re not. Be drunk-Garrett! Drunk-Garrett wasn’t worried about anything. Here, have another.”

He pours and I drink.

And then he kisses me on the mouth.

 _Andy’s a good kisser. And he tastes kind of sweet. White Russiany._

“Hey!”

“Hold on!” he says, letting me go, “Pressure’s off now, right? Now Fen’s not going to be your first kiss in two years… Holy God, Garrett, I can’t believe that!”

He takes a glass bottle of cream out of the fridge. Totally nonchalant. Totally like someone who didn’t just kiss me.

But he is right. A certain weight has lifted.

And, also, vodka is a good thing.

“Hey, Andy?”

“Yes, Garrett?”

“Would you like me to make you a friendship bracelet?”

He laughs, and the coffee beeps like a little robot.

“Yeah, Garrett, I’d like that very much.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Garrett! You have to be quiet!”

Andy says it all serious, but he’s laughing. I’m laughing. We’re all laughing.

Including Fen who is laughing and sitting with a glass of red wine in his hand and his back against the little half wall that goes all the way around the rooftop. His legs are bent, oxfords planted on the ground in front of him. He’s laughing quietly, and with his head down and I can’t see his smile but, my god, my chest feels warm.

 _Hot._

 _“Why do I have to be quiet, Andy?”_

 _“Because it’s four in the morning, Garrett, and everyone in the building beneath your feet is trying to sleep.”_

 _“Rule Number Two!” I _am_ on my feet, “Sleep When You’re Dead!”_

I feel drunk, but not as drunk as I had at Bianca’s. I think Andy’s secretly an alcohol MD, or a booze pharmacist or a vodka wizard something… he knew exactly how much to give me based on my size, age… and social ineptitude.

“Kitten!” Isabela is there, next to me. Her legs are bare still but she’s pulled one of Andy’s sweaters on over her wench-suit. I pick a lint-ball from her shoulder.

She throws a blanket around my shoulders and pulls me in close to her, tugging me off my balance, “Why don’t you sit down for a bit?”

“Eh? I was telling a story. I was in the middle of a story--”

“No, kitten, you were at the end of a story that had somehow devolved into something that looked vaguely reminiscent of a Riverdance,” she laughs, “and how are you not cold?”

“Hawkes run hot,” I assure her, “Once! Oh my god, once--”

“This sounds like another long story…” Merrill whispers sweetly from where she’s sitting with Andy. We brought all his extra blankets and pillows up here and the two of them are nestled in together like two little baby birds in a nest.

“Well, listen, kitten,” Isabela says more quietly, pulling my face down towards hers, “I’m cold. And there’s a lot of snuggling going on over there without me that I want to be a part of,” she points at the nest, “and I think you should go and sit down over there,” she glances at the very much unoccupied and surprisingly Garrett-shaped spot next to Fen.

“You’ve hardly talked to him at all,” she fusses with the blanket around my shoulders like a cape.

“I’ve… I’ve talked to him!”

“Inadvertently while telling all of us about your childhood love of dance, I think. Go.”

 _Oh, god. I was telling them about the dance classes… of all the stories I could tell..._

“I don’t want to mess it up!”

She shrugs, “You’ve been messing it up for weeks and, yet, here he is on a cold rooftop at four in the morning… being ignored by you.”

“I’m not ignoring--”

She kisses me, a peck on the lips, and slaps my ass, “Go! I’m cold and Andy and Merrill are warm and inviting and you need to be a big boy right now.”

She’s gone.

I hold the blanket around my throat and walk, with great dignity, towards him.

His elbows are resting on his knees and he’s turning the glass, watching the wine swirl.

“Is it good?” That sounds smooth, Garrett.

“Yeah. It’s… nice.”

“Can I…” Excuse me, is this seat taken? Derp. Derp. Derp.

“Yeah, sure,” he scoots a little as though to accommodate me but he doesn’t need to. There’s plenty of room. Lots. A whole wall.

And I sit, with no grace whatsoever legs stretching long and awkward away from me. I realize that I’m essentially wearing a skirt and try to adjust it demurely.

I tuck the edges under my thighs. Which looks silly.

 _Oh, god, he’s watching me adjust my skirt._

I give up and cross one leg over the other, straight out in front of me.

“Do you want to try?”

“Huh?”

The wine. His wine is much closer to my face than I expected and it takes my eyes a second to adjust.

“Oh, yeah.”

I take it. I sniff like I know what I’m doing and take a sip. And like a total freak, I try to line up my lip to the spot where his lip has left a mark on the glass. Because I’m a pervert.

“That’s nice. And red.”

 _And thus, I've exhausted all my wine knowledge. Nice and red._

He takes it back and drinks, and he totally doesn’t turn the glass to find a new lip-spot. _Maybe he’s a pervert too! Or. Maybe it’s dark and he didn’t notice. How could he not notice that our lips touched the glass in the same place?!_

“So… you uh, had a good time?”

“Hmm?”

“At the party. You, you seem like you had…”

“Oh! Yeah. It was nice. You were late.”

 _Brain!_

“Again,” he rubs a tattooed knuckle against his tattooed chin.

“Tell me about those.”

“Excuse me?”

 _Fuck. Too forward. Isn’t that a rule? You don’t ask tattooed people about their tattoos? It’s rude, or something._

“Your tattoos. They’re really… I think they…”

He looks at me. A wind blows and is hair gets pushed back from his completely unreadable face.

“I was young,” he says slowly, setting down his glass between his feet, “and the person I was dating did…” he clears his throat, “He did them.”

He pushes the thermal sleeve up on his right arm, and holds it up so I can see, “It took a long time. It was his big project. _I_ was his big project.”

They look silver. Like scars.

 _Which is how he’s talking about them._

 _And I suddenly feel like the hugest jackass for asking him about something he really doesn’t want to talk about._

“They look…” I can smell the skin of his arm, “neat.”

 _NEAT._

“Hmmm…” he pushes his sleeve back down.

At least I didn’t ask where else they are. Even though that’s all I can think about. All I can see is some of his chest where the thermal isn’t buttoned and chart the course of the tattoos on his arm to the tattoos on his chest… like I’m fucking Lewis and Clark.

“Do you…” he stops himself, “you don’t have any.”

“Tattoos? No. Too chicken. Needles freak me out.”

“Ahh.”

“I do have some scars that… well, I have one that I think looks like a dog.”

“A dog?”

“Yeah,” oh, god, Garrett, what the fuck are you doing right now??

"Wait," I lean forward and twist, pulling up the blanket to show him the spot on my ribs that was cut up to ribbons when I flipped over my mountain bike handlebars as a kid and skidded down a rocky trail, hitting every rock on the way down, “There.”

I feel his breath on my skin.

But more jarring than that, I see three sets of eyes fixed on me, like sharp-eyed baby eagles in a nest. They're sitting up, watching every move... How does this look? I’m bent forward, in a cape and skirt (which, at this angle, I'm pretty sure they can see up) and his head is dipping down towards my hip.

Isabela bites her lower lip and her eyes bug excitedly, like a cartoon character.

And then my world breaks into a million little pieces.

“This?”

Just a fingertip.

 _His._

On my skin.

And I can’t see it, but I know he’s right on my scar.

He touched me.

Oh… I bite back a moan and feel goosebumps spread out everywhere. And, yes, of course. My nipples are hard again. _Great_.

“Uh. Yeah,” I feel winded, my lungs crunched as my freak-long torso is bent forward.

He traces the shape of it, then his hand is gone, completely. Fast. He picks up his glass and holds it between two hands.

“I think it looks like a cow,” he sips, “but… I mean… I could see how you’d see it as a dog. Too.”

“They’re… very alike. Sometimes.”

“Not… really.”

I re-wrap my cape around myself, covering my chest, and stare forward trying to to breathe weird.

The baby eagles have laid back down. The three of them are now wrapped up together in the big nest of blankets and pillows and quilts. I can't shake the image of them as baby birds. Or sausages. Andy’s in between them, pointing up at the stars. Merrill’s head is on his shoulder and Isabela’s hand is idly playing with the waistband of his Lebowski shorts.

 _I like those people. Very much. My little baby bird sausages._

“How long have you lived here?” He doesn’t look at me.

“Um. Well. A few years. Kind of. Moved here after my Dad…” _Okay. This story gets long, fast_ , “A few years.”

“Me too,” he says, “I still don’t know what I think of it.”

“I like it,” I say, “I like the people.”

He exhales through his nose, and I hear it echo in his glass. “A few of them are all right, yeah.”

“How’s… photography?”

He shrugs, “Slow. I’ve been taking senior portraits this week,” he finally, finally looks up at me, “not the most fulfilling. I don’t think I’m very good at it, honestly. Taking senior portraits. Kids don’t like me.”

“No?”

“Or, maybe I don’t like them.”

“Maybe it’s a two-way street of dislike.”

“Yeah. More than likely.”

 _I want to say, I like you._

 _But I don’t._

“What do you… like photographing? If not high school seniors leaning against brick walls.”

He laughs at that, “I… funny thing is I like portraits. That what I like best. Faces.”

I like your face.

“Interesting faces.”

I’m nodding stupidly, fast.

“I’d… if you were interested… I’d like to…”

He’s stumbling.

“I’ve never had my picture taken by a professional. Well. No, that’s not true. I did as a kid. For my birthdays.”

 _I see the absolutely humiliating gallery of our childhood portraits in my mother’s home office. I was a gawky kid. I never really outgrew it, but at least I don't still have braces._

He looks back at me, eyes narrowed behind the glasses.

“You’d be interested?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Yeah. We’ll… I’ve got a lot of free time now. So… whenever works for you. We should. Do that.”

 _hewantstotakemypicture._

 _“Neat!” _Again with NEAT_. “Really. That’ll be… cool.” _Nice save, Garrett.__

"I'll, um, give you my number. So you can text me and let me know when," he smiles and finishes his wine.

I watch his throat as he swallows.

 _God._

“I think I’m ready for coffee now,” he starts to stand, “do you… want some?”

“Yeah,” I nod, looking up at him, “Black. Please.”


	13. Chapter 13

“What are you doing?!”

None of them move. And neither do I.

“What?”

“Follow him, you idiot!!” Isabela starts to get up, but Andy pulls her back down.

“He’s… he’s getting coffee.”

He walked past them, and they all just lay there playing possum until his feet made no more noise on the fire-escape. Then they sat up and started glaring at me. And yelling at me in stage-whispers.

“Follow. Him.” Andy says through his teeth.

“Garrett, I think they’re right. I think you need to follow him down,” Merrill has her hands folded in front of her chest and looks at me like a little praying cartoon mouse.

“But, then… we’ll be alone,” I whisper.

They stare at me.

“And your problem with being alone with the object of your sexual obsession in a room with a comfortable bed and a nightstand full of condoms is exactly--”

“Condoms!” I stand up. “Sexual obsession!”

“Stop acting like my grandmother,” Isabela rolls her eyes, “And. Go.”

I want to go.

My instinct is telling me to go.

But my instinct tells me to do lots of things that are completely idiotic.

 _I need a new instinct._

“Wh…” I push my damn hair out of my face, “I’m…”

They look up at me, imploring and irritated and, oh, god Merrill just looks so worried…

I start walking towards the fire escape.

It’s a long way down to the ground floor. Not really that long. But it feels like it. It feels like forever and my body is so big and clumsy and heavy and it sounds like an elephant coming down the fire escape. At least I won’t startle him. He’ll hear me coming.

The back door is open, and I can hear him inside. Or, not him, but the sound of a ceramic mug being set on a counter top.

I push the door open.

He turns around, coffee pot in his hand.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I am stuck in the doorway. I’m like a vampire and I can’t cross until he invites me in… even though this isn’t his house and that’s how that works. Or it does on True Blood. What?! “I, uh…”

He’s just standing there, and I can see the muscle in his arm rounded from holding the coffee pot at such a strange angle.

“I… wanted to…”

There are christmas lights above the kitchen cabinets, and that’s all the light in the room. Thank god that he can’t see me well because I’m pretty sure I’m shaking.

“I needed to…” I point to the bathroom.

“Oh. Yeah,” and he moves, pouring the coffee into two mugs and turning his back to me.

His perfect back.

I scuttle past him, my cape fluttering stupidly and lunge for the refuge of the bathroom.

I shut the door and turn on the light. I lean on the counter and look up at myself.

 _Pathetic. You are pathetic. You’re a grown ass man, Garrett Hawke._

 _Look, you have grey hairs. Two of them. You are a man with grey hairs and you can’t even…_

I groan and turn on the sink.

This bathroom is filthy. Okay, not filthy, but messy. There is a pile of clothes next to the bathtub.

I sit down on the edge of the tub.

On the top of that pile of clothes is a copy of Andy’s book. The one with his picture of the back. The dust jacket it rippled where it’s been held by wet fingers.

Someone’s drawn on his face. A twirly moustache, dark angry eyebrows, and a top hat drawn in black Sharpie. And a word bubble, which just says, “Muwa-ah-ah!” in Isabela’s handwriting.

There is also, I realize then, a cat.

There is a cat lounging in the bathtub. It’s orange and it stares up at me with judgmental green eyes.

This is why I don’t like cats. They judge you.

“I already know I’m pathetic,” I whisper to the cat, “Stop looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t stop.

I stand up, splash water on my face and turn off the sink.

I look at my wet face.

I flush the toilet, part of my “I had to use the bathroom” ruse, and turn off the light.

I hesitate, my hand on the doorknob, standing in the black bathroom with a cat behind me somewhere. Which is really disconcerting, actually. I imagine it coming at me and cutting my Achilles’ tendon with his claws… like an assassin.

“Pathetic,” I sigh.

I open the door.

He’s right there.

I don’t move.

His hands are on the door frame, but he doesn’t look at me. He _can’t_ look at me.

It’s dark and I can barely make out the shape of him, but I can feel the heat of his body he’s that close.

I stare of the top of his head.

“I haven’t…” I can hear him swallow, “done this in a long time.”

 _This isn’t happening. I slipped in the bathroom and busted my head open and I’m hallucinating this near death. That is the only explanation._

I’m sweaty.

“This?”

He doesn’t look up at me, but one of his hands leaves the door frame.

I feel his fingers, hot against my neck. Too hot. The kind of hot that stays in your skin when you hold a hot cup of coffee for too long.

I can’t move.

It finally really registers that this is really happening and I feel my heart in my throat, fast, like I’ve swallowed a frantic bird.

His fingers are there, gingerly pressing against the curve of my neck, and his thumb against my jaw. Careful. Like I might bolt.

 _Where would I bolt to?_

“I haven’t… done this in a long time either,” I choke.

“Hmm…”

He pulls himself up. And he pulls me down. And we must meet somewhere in the middle.

 _Lips._

 _Coffee._

 _Teeth._

 _Breathe._

 _His hair is so soft. Softer than I—_

 _Tongue._

 _Oh, fuck._

He is kissing me.

And I am kissing him back.

And my brain goes blessedly blank, white, clean… like fresh canvas.

Like light.

Something brushes past my bare ankles. Andy’s cat runs between my legs and out of the bathroom. I yelp and jump forward, pushing Fen accidentally against the facing wall.

I’m red everywhere, but, it's dark, so… at least I have that going for me.

I hear, and feel, him laugh, a deep, deep noise.

And then the reality that he’s there, in front of me, pressed closer to me. I’m so ungodly tall… but he almost just seems to… fit.

“I fucking hate cats,” he growls.

 _I know you do because you’re a wolf! Wolves hate cats! Or… I assume they do because they’re pretty much dogs._

 _Really bad ass dogs._

“Me… I do too.”

I hear him grunt, a kind of incredible animal sound, and then his hands are in my hair.

I kiss him.

I kiss him and it's so fucking perfect that I don't even care that I'm wearing a cape and a skirt.


	14. Chapter 14

_Oh, god._

 _This is real._

 _He is real._

 _He is really kissing me._

 _And, um, wow._

 _Wow._

I’m curving my back and my neck as far as I can.

Be accommodating, you know?

I feel like I could just curl around him entirely.

He growls.

 _I couldn’t have made that up. I didn’t._

He pushes me back, freeing himself from the wall which now has two sweaty bricks from where my palms were pressed into it for, how long has this been happening? Five minutes?

I have no idea. Time is irrelevant.

 _Fuck time._

I don’t need to know.

I reach for his face again. He’s turned up at me, and his throat is long and tattooed and…

…and there’s no good way for me to reach it standing up.

 _And I need to._

And that’s when I, Garrett Hawke, take the initiative.

He staggers as I try to guide him backwards towards Andy’s bed.

Bed is forward. I know that it is. But Andy doesn’t really have other furniture. He doesn’t have a couch. Or a futon. He has a desk.

 _Oh, god._

 _Pushing Fen towards the desk instead._

 _Oh. God._

 _But no, no. It’s way too cluttered and there is… Oh, Andy… there’s a bowl of soggy store brand Cheerios and milk there._

 _So, yeah, desk is out._

 _Gross, Andy._

 _Bed._

 _That’s my main focus in life._

I have tunnel vision.

He steps on a shoe and catches himself, agile and athletic and I wonder if he does some kind of martial arts or something because feeling him, actually holding him and feeling him against me, he feels lean and hot and… he feels like what I always imagined Bruce Lee would feel like.

If you were holding Bruce Lee.

If you were kissing the fuck out of Bruce Lee against a brick wall.

If you were pushing Bruce Lee back onto your friend’s unmade bed.

Yes. This is exactly what Bruce Lee would feel like. After a lifetime of wondering, now I know.

He’s on his back on the bed, looking up at me. And breathing hard.

His glasses are smudged. My face grease has smudged them.

“Sorry,” I mumble, touching my face to check and see just how greasy I am. I just washed my face. How is this possible?

“For what?” his voice is thick.

His eyes are dark behind smudged glass.

I untie my cape, more looking for something for do with my hands than anything else. It falls behind me on the hardwood floor.

This is the most naked I’ve been with anyone who isn’t a physician in an embarrassingly long time.

He, meanwhile, is still very dressed.

And I can’t move.

I’m frozen.

I was so bold when we were against the wall! I want to go back to the wall.

Bed was a poor choice.

But, fucking hell, he looks good in bed.

He shifts then, rolling a little to the left, and digs into his back pocket.

He’s smiling.

 _Beautful—_

 _Wait. What is he doing?_

 _Is he getting a condom?_

 _Does he have a condom in his pocket?_

 _Am I ready for a condom?_

 _Well, yeah. Anatomically I think I’m more than ready for a condom._

 _But! Oh, god! I can’t--_

He pulls the plastic hypodermic needle out from under himself and shows it to me.

Oh. That!

He chucks it in the direction of the kitchen and it hits the floor.

“It’s actually a pen.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he reaches for my hand, my big dumb hand, and pulls me forward.

Between his legs and over him.

“Yeah. A red ink pen. Funny, right?”

“Yeah. Hilarious. Because it’s a needle. And it’s like blood. Which needles are often involved with.”

I’m holding myself up over him. I’m, like, hovering over him.

“That would be the joke, Garrett.”

I’m planking over him. And shaking a little from the lack of powerful abdominal muscles.

 _Got to add sit ups to the routine._

He looks up at me. And I think he smiles.

I feel dizzy.

His hand is against my side, lightly. Over my dog-scar.

I get bold. Brick-wall bold. I lower my hips, slowly, until I’m pressing against him, pressing him down into the mattress.

 _OHFUCK, THAT’SHISCOCK._

He growls under me, and I feel his mouth, his lips and teeth, and tongue on my throat.

Throat.

I remember the ink on his throat, and on the back of his neck.

I lower myself down further, leaning on my elbows instead of my wrists.

I am literally covering him. Like, entirely.

His head is turned and I kiss his throat, making a path towards the back of his neck.

He groans.

 _I hope I sound that good._

 _I hope I don’t sound as whiny to him as I do in my head. I sound so wheezy to me. Like the asthmatic kid that I am._

I push up again to look at his face.

 _I’m the greasiest. His glasses are almost opaque. Hide the evidence, Garrett._

I roll to the side, pinning his thigh under me. His head is resting on the bed, turned towards me, soft white hair the same color as the white down comforter.

Fingers shaking, I carefully take off his glasses, swallowing as they pass under his hair and away from his ears.

He blinks, fast.

I wipe the lenses with the sheet and fold them before reaching behind me to put them on the nightstand.

The nightstand that I know, apparently, is filled with condoms.

I turn back to him, and smile. Dumbly.

He’s just lying there, staring at me with enormous eyes that look entirely black in the Christmas lights.

“I…” he’s frowning. That’s not a good sign. His body is stiff. That’s a worse sign. “I’m sorry.”

My heart barfs into my throat, and my fingers feel like ice, “For what?”

“I thought… I thought I could do this. And then you…” he looks in the direction of the nightstand.

“You--” _…but now you know that I’m so much worse at this than you thought I’d be and now you’re ready to pick up your hypodermic and go? And you know now, so no more mystery and you’ll be getting your coffee at Starbucks from now on, thanks very much…_ “Am I… it’s.. been a long time. I… I think I’ll get better. It’s like riding a bike, right? Supposedly. That’s what they say… but I haven’t been on a bike for a really long time.”

“No, it’s not you,” he pulls back, but holds my face between his two really, incredibly hot hands, “You’re… fine.”

“Oh.”

“No!” he lets me go, and pulls back further, “Ugh. I’m sorry. My… glasses--”

I grab them and hand them back to him. “Did I do something wrong?”

 _Like, be born._

He sits up, takes them, puts them on and folds his hands in his lap.

“No. Nothing. I just…” he doesn’t look at me, “you don’t know anything about me. And I don’t--”

“I’d like to. And I'll tell you anything you want to know about me. I'm an open, boring book.”

He shakes his head, “I shouldn’t have come here. I feel stupid.”

He’s starting to go.

What did I do?? I usually know what I did wrong, at least. Not knowing is so much worse!

“Fen,” _oh, god, I wish I was wearing pants_ , “I… you’re right. I don’t know anything about you. Not really. But… I like… I mean… I’ve liked everything I’ve found out so far and I want to know more. If you’ll let me?”

And… my voice cracks. Jesus, I’m almost thirty. When will that stop?!

But I look at him, and he so clearly wants to leave.

But, god, I don’t want him to.

“I’m…” _I’m wearing a skirt. I’m re-virginizing as we speak. I’m still not entirely convinced that I didn’t crack my head in Andy’s dirty bathroom._ “I like you. I’d like to… not have sex with you.”

“Huh?”

“I mean! I’d like to! Obviously,” _okay, how about we don’t draw attention to the erection in the skirt_ , “Someday. Maybe. If that… worked out. But, I’d like to… not… right now. And, maybe just…”

“Be friends?”

“Yeah.”

 _No. No! Not friends! Not friends!_

“We can… try that.”

“Great!” I sound really enthusiastic for something I’m not enthusiastic about at all.

“I still think… maybe I should go…”

“Sun’s almost up.”

“Yeah… I…”

“Okay,” I swallow. Which is really hard to do with a completely dry mouth.

“Let me give you my number,” he picks up his phone from the counter, by the coffee pot and two full coffee mugs long gone cold, “What’s your number?”

I tell him. He texts me.

My phone is still at Bianca’s.

“Okay then. I’ll… see you.”

“Yeah!” I want to cry. “Oh… wait, how will you get home?”

“I’ll walk.”

“Are you sure--”

“I think I need a long walk,” he says, with finality, and a half smile.

“Okay.”

He leaves.

And after a really depressing couple of minutes, I pick up my cape, wrap it around myself, and make the low sad climb back up to the roof.

The three of them are still awake, still curled up together. The cat is there too.

At the grim and lonely sight of me, they make room for me in the nest and we silently watch the sun come up in November.

I know I must look really, truly awful because none of them even ask. Not then, anyway.

…

To add insult to injury, when Andy drops Isabela and me off at our building, the Dragon-Lady is waiting outside.

“Shit,” Isabela hisses.

It occurs to me that neither one of us is wearing pants.

“Well, well…” she eyes us both, “What have we here.”

“Lovely to see you, so bright and early,” Isabela says dryly.

“Hmm. The building was egged last night,” she says, turning away from us, “Pah! Revelry. I came to address that. And yet…”

 _Why is she so creepy?!_

“You have a visitor, it seems,” she steps towards me. _It is very early for that much eyeliner on a woman that age._

“A… visitor?”

Is Fen here? He doesn’t know where I live.

“A young man,” her penciled eyebrows arch, “who it seems slept on your porch. I asked if he’d seen the eggers. He did not. He was surprisingly unhelpful.”

I hurry past her.

 _It’s fine! He came here and he’s waiting for me and I’m going to kiss him and say, “I don’t want to be your friend! I want to have sex with you!”_

“Hello, Garrett.”

 _…the fuck?!_

I literally skid to a halt.

“Your mother told me where you lived. I… didn’t have anywhere else to go. Your porch is… very comfortable.”

I hear Isabela sneaking up behind me.

But I only see red.

“What… the hell are you doing here, Sebastian?”


	15. Chapter 15

I think I’m broken.

I think I need to go to sleep. I’m too old to stay awake this long.

And also, my lip hurts. I think my lip is bruised.

I think Fen is an amazing kisser and I did something stupid and wrong and he left, but not before bruising my lip.

And I’m horny. And confused. And the former love of my life is downstairs sitting on my couch with my dog watching TV. Because that's totally something that happens to people all the time, right?

I’m sitting on Isabela’s incredibly comfortable bed and staring, dazed, at a picture of her and Andy and a… dolphin.

 _Well that’s weird._

 _They’re weird people._

Weird though she may be, she really took care of things downstairs. I just kind of gawped.

I don't want to be maudlin and say that he broke my heart. But. I think my heart was decidedly more whole before that afternoon that he drove me to the beach, and we sat there in the front seat and he told me about God and how we just couldn’t do this anymore.

This from the guy who had blown me in every bathroom on campus, including the one in the on-campus chapel.

Downstairs, Isabela had pried my keys out of my hand and let him inside (and, at my mumbled request from the doorway, she let Bradley in) then dragged me up to her apartment.

She texted Andy and then bolted for the shower, where she was now.

I flop back on the bed and immediately feel like I’m falling asleep.

I’m old. And tired. And I can hear my TV.

 _Can she always hear my TV?_

 _Does she know how often I watch The Golden Girls?_

 _Oh, god, I hope not._

Something hard digs into my back through the comforter. I fish it out.

It’s definitely a Han Solo belt, blaster in a holster and everything.

 _They’re so weird._

I crawl up to the pillows and lay face down. The sound of the shower is soothing, like a white noise machine. Like a babbling brook.

Maybe when I wake up, he’ll be gone, and the Fen situation will fix itself and I’ll be wearing pants.

I’m mostly asleep when I hear keys at the door. And then Andy is there.

“When it rains it pours, huh?”

“Is it raining?” I don’t lift my head.

“Something like that. Maybe it’s hail.”

I feel him sit on the edge of the bed, and the edge of the belt brushes my bare leg, “Oh, hey! I wondered where this was!”

“Where else could it be?” I ask, my voice muffled by the pillows.

The shower turns off. Isabela comes out. She smells like warm vanilla.

“I had to get him out of there. I didn’t know what else to do. He just shut down. It was like he was a robot and his battery died!”

 _Vanilla is nice._

“So… he’s just down there alone right now?”

“Yeah. He slept on his porch!”

“Yikes,” Andy pats my calf, “yikes.”

“And… he has Jesus’ face on his belt buckle!” she sits on the bed too.

“He does not!” Andy sounds horrified.

“He does. I could hardly look at anything else! I felt like He was judging me. And… when I say He, I’m forced to use the capital ‘H’ He.”

I roll over, careful to adjust my skirt, and look at them.

She’s wrapped in a towel that’s a little too small for that purpose, her hair wet on her shoulders. She's not my type, but I'll be damned if she isn't beautiful. Even more so like this, with all the make-up washed off. I've never seen her like this before.

“What do you want to do, kitten?”

 _Vanilla is happiness._

“I think I want French Toast.”

Andy looks at Bela, “Do you have any food?”

“No, not really. I have whipped cream.”

“Ugh,” I lay back down, “of course you do.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it, kitten,” she says gently.

“Okay,” Andy says calmly, “how about this? Bela and I will go to the store, get what we need to make breakfast, you meanwhile stay here, and sleep, and… maybe take a shower, and then we’ll make French Toast and figure out what our next move is.”

“Our?”

“ _Your_ , really. But…” he smiles, “we signed on to be your Wingmen. That’s a commitment.”

I feel a warm and fuzzy knot in my gut, and for a second, I think about asking both of them to just stay here and sleep on either side of me. I imagine being a big spoon and a little spoon at the same time would be extra amazing.

But… the lure of French Toast is too strong.

“Okay.”

“If you want to borrow some clothes, my drawer is on the bottom. Might be a little snug--”

“Thanks, Andy.”

I drag myself up, feeling like I am literally a million years old. While Bela gets dressed, I avert my eyes and grab a pair of pants and a shirt out of said drawer and go into the bathroom, standing on the wet footprints she left on the mat by the shower while the water heats up.

Despite everything, I’m still unbearably horny. It’s embarrassing. I war with myself for a little while under the slightly too hot water about the ethics of rubbing one out in a friend’s shower… but… I mean, if I was ever going to do it, I figure Isabela’s shower is the most acceptable. She'd understand.

I hardly think about anything, but, mostly about Fen, and the way that he felt.

 _And also, how he smelled._

 _And tasted._

 _And sounded._

 _And, god, I hope I get to feel, smell, taste and hear him like that again. Soon. Before never._

When I come out, they’re gone. I'm wearing Andy's pants and his shirt, which are both admittedly too snug and too short. The place is quiet, except for the muffled sound of my TV through the floor.

I fall on the bed, burrow under the covers, and am asleep in about two seconds.

I wake up to a warm hand on the center of my back and look up to find a glass of orange juice (generously spiked) hovering near my face. I smell the sweet and alluring scent of the mountain of French toast heaped on a plate in the center of Isabela’s kitchen table.

“Thanks, Andy.”

“I stopped by Bianca’s and grabbed your stuff,” he says, walking over to the table and sitting down. Isabela is spraying a lot of whipped cream onto her toast.

“Did you get my phone?!”

He nods, sipping coffee from a chipped college mug.

My phone is on top of my neatly folded shirt on a chair. I have six missed calls, three of them from my mother (thanks so much, mother).

But more than that.

So much more than that.

I have two new texts.

From a number I have yet to enter into my phone.

The first:

 **Body:  
Fen.**

I save his number immediately.

“Come on, kitten, your toast is getting cold. And eaten,” Isabela scoots the third chair back from the table with her foot.

The second text, sent at 6:07 am:

 **From: Fen  
Body:  
i can’t stop thinking about you.**

 _Okay._

 _This is… less of a disaster than I thought._

 _Maybe not a disaster at all._

 _I mean… apart from the Sebastian part._

 _Damn him._


	16. Chapter 16

First step, which is perfectly logical, is to find out why he’s here.

After three years.

Andy kept the spiked OJ’s coming. I’m a little warm in the face. But I’d probably be a little warm in the face regardless. At least this way, I’m also slightly anesthetized.

He’s sitting on the couch, with Bradley’s head in his lap.

“He’s enormous,” he says, looking over the back of the couch at me, “I remember when you got him. He was just a wee little runt.”

Bradley snuffs heavily, as if knowing that he’s the topic of conversation.

“So…” I move no further into the room, “what’s the deal, Sebastian?”

“Ah. The deal?”

He turns back, facing away from me and I stare at his neck. It’s weird how something so familiar at one time can all of a sudden be familiar again after years of not being… anything. I remember _freckles_ , for god’s sake. Individual neck freckles. And there they are.

“We were happy together,” he says, quietly, scratching Bradley behind the ears, “Do you remember?”

I don’t say anything. I refuse to say anything. Even if I did have anything to say… it’s been a hell of a lot easier to remember how miserable I was at the end than any of the times we were happy.

“You were my best friend,” he says, and stands up, facing me with the couch between us. “I met a woman.”

I think, _And that sent your hurtling back to the porch of your former male lover because…_

But I say, “Oh?”

“The woman I met… well, I made a vow. I…”

How, exactly, am I expected to take him seriously at all when he’s standing there with one third of the holy trinity staring in my general direction from his crotch?

“I made a vow to live chastely.”

I laugh.

I can’t help it.

It’s too ridiculous.

“Oh, did you?!”

“Yes.”

 _Totally serious. He’s totally serious! The same man who once literally begged me to fuck him on the catwalk above the stage during a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat._

“Okay. Great. Congratulations?”

“No… you don’t understand me, Garrett. I’m here, because… I _don’t know_ what to do anymore.”

“Okay.”

“I thought I knew. I was thinking of becoming a priest.”

“So you’re Catholic now?!”

“No. I’m--”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” pun intended, “you don’t know what to do; you’ve taken a vow of chastity that now you’re not 100% on, and so… you came back here, to me, because…”

“Because you are the only person who ever really made me happy.”

 _Well, there that is._

 _He spits it out. Blergh. And it’s just sitting there in the middle of the living room floor._

“…and I can’t go back to the church until I know for sure.”

Oh. I see.

“Is this like... gay rumspringa?"

"The Amish practice?"

"Yeah!"

"N-no."

 _It totally is gay rumspringa._

"And... you need somewhere to stay?”

He smiles, er, half smiles.

“I was hoping…”

I cringe.

“Why don’t you go and stay with my mother? You two clearly have something special.”

“Oh,” he looks down, “I suppose… I could.”

“I don’t think you staying here is a good idea,” my chest tightens a little at the look he gives me when he lifts his head.

“Why? Is there… someone?”

 _Jealous!_

“Yes,” I’m already regretting this, “There is.”

“Leandra said that there wasn’t. That there hasn’t been. Not since…”

 _Jesus Christ, mother!_

 _Sorry, Jesus._

 _Seriously, though… stop looking at me like that!_

 _I swear it’s like His eyes are following me._

“Well. She doesn’t know.”

“Oh.”

“It’s new. He’s new.”

“I see,” he steps closer to me. He needs a shower, but he still smells like Sebastian. Which is a good smell. A good smell that I hate. He looks at my lip. “Did he do that to you?”

And now I’m uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. And he’s using his sexy voice. Not an interrogative voice, or an accusatory voice and definitely not a Church voice.

“Y-yes.”

There is an immediate banging on my door, and the doorbell. Bradley goes ballistic.

 _Thank god._

I peel away from him and jog to the door.

Isabela is there, pounding on the window by the door with an open hand.

 _Oh, Wingmen, you’re so good at--_

I open the door.

There’s blood on her shirt.

“Jesus!”

I feel a little faint. That’s more than a little blood.

“Andy’s slit his wrist!”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Oh, stop it,” I look up. He’s slumped on the banister, easing his way down the steps, clutching a kitchen towel to his arm and, I’m a little dizzy, bleeding a lot. “I’m not suicidal. I want to live. And I also want Isabela to not put knives in the drying rack pointy side up.”

 _Okay. Okay. **BLOOD**. Okay._

“Drive us to the hospital?!” Isabela goes over to him, and he leans on her.

 _Oh, god, he’s pale. **BLOOD**._

“Can I help?”

Sebastian gently pushes by me, and goes to Andy, gripping his bleeding arm, “Garrett’s afraid of blood,” he says gently.

“Jesus Christ!” Andy is staring at, well, at _Jesus_.

“It’s deep, yeah,” Sebastian looks over his shoulder at me, “Bring your car around, Gare.”

I mumble something and bring my car around front.

I open the back door and Sebastian helps ease Andy in, not letting go of his arm. Bela gets into the passenger seat and turns to look back at him.

The drive to the hospital is a blur.

“Bela, I think I’m dying.”

“Ugh. You’re not dying!”

“I’m not a religious man…”

“Andy, shut up,” she genuinely doesn’t believe him, about the death bit. He is managing to get a goodly amount of blood on my seat, though, and looking a little peaked in the rearview mirror.

“If I die… I want you to know that I’ve always--”

“Do shut up, Andy,” she says curtly, reaching back to pat his knee.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Sebastian asks quietly.

“What?! No,” he softens a little, “but if you wouldn’t mind putting something over His eyes I’d appreciate it. The son of God staring at me as I bleed to death in the backseat of a Saturn is not exactly as comforting as you might think… He’s freaking me out.”

Pursing his lips, I see Sebastian grab the rag I use to clean my windshield off of the floorboard and put it in his lap.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Feeling like something from a movie, I pull into the emergency room bay.

 _Aren’t they supposed to run out to my car? They run out in movies? I’ve seen ER. I have a man bleeding to death in my backseat! Run, nurses!_

No one comes to the car. I follow as Sebastian and Isabela guide Andy through the doors and up to the check-in desk.

“Andy?!”

“Nate!”

Nate’s there in scrubs, and very quickly whisks Andy away.

“Sir?” the woman at the desk looks up at me, “you need to move your car.”

“When can we go back with him?” I ask, looking at her nametag, “Miss Cauthrien.”

“We’ll let you know. But, really, you have to move your car.”

“I’ve got it. Give me your keys, Garrett.”

Sebastian takes my keys with bloody hands and goes out through the doors.

“You okay?” I ask Isabela.

“I feel pretty bad, actually. Can you imagine if I'd accidentally killed him?"

She sounds so near tears that I'm taken aback. I pull her into a hug.

"I mean... I've never met anyone else who gives head as good as him! I don't think I ever will again."

I laugh, and squeeze her, "Is that what you'd put on his gravestone - ' _Here Lies Andy; He Gave Great Head._ '"

She replies, maudlin, "It's what he would want."

"He's going to be fine," I let her go and realize too late that she's gotten blood all over my shirt. Or, rather, Andy's borrowed shirt. Today just isn't his day. I feel dizzy. “So you…”

She looks at me. There’s blood on her cheek.

“You guys didn’t do this on purpose? Not a wingman thing?”

She punches me in the arm, hard. Her fist is so bony! I groan.

Nurse Cauthrien looks up at us, irritated.

“No! You mean, did we sit upstairs and say, ‘Gee… poor Garrett needs our help, oh here’s a knife I’ve got an idea’?? No!”

“Okay, okay! Sorry I asked. I just… I mean…”

“God, flatter yourself much?” she looks at me, still pissed, “It was an accident. Why? Was it good timing?”

There is still a lot of blood on her shirt and I feel my vision go black at the edges a little. “Yeah, actually.”

“Well,” she folds her arms, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”

We go sit in the waiting room.

I have the strongest urge to text Fen and tell him where I am. Which is stupid, of course, because… I mean… why should he be the one I tell. I do text Merrill, who rushes over immediately with a clean shirt for Isabela.  
Sebastian stays with us. He is very attentive.

I keep scowling at him without meaning to. I’m just so suspicious of his motives. Part of me wants to believe that he is legitimately just being one of those overly nice, helpful Christian guys… and the other part of me can’t help but feel that it’s all a show. Like, _‘Oh, look at how great I am at dealing with difficult situations. Remember how I always took care of these things? Remember that, Gare?’_

At any rate, we wait for a long time. I finally send him home to check on Bradley and feed him.

I then text Fen.

Because, you know what, I want to.

The smell of the ER is making me feel sick.

And I want to text him.

I get a response almost immediately.

 **From: Fen  
Body:  
what do u need?**

I look at Isabela and Merrill.

I text back, “Nothing really. Just sitting and waiting. 4ever.”

 **From: Fen  
Body:  
im nearby. in the park. give me a reason to leave this hs senior.**

Merrill gives me an encouraging little smile, which is just what she does, even without knowing that I’m about to hit send on a text that just says, “ _yes. please come. ”_


	17. Chapter 17

When I was a sophomore in college, I took my roommate to the emergency room when he “accidentally” swallowed a tumbler of india ink. Joe was a mess like that… always. And always over a girl. That one was… Lily? Rose? I don’t remember anymore. She was transferring and he was distraught. Hence, the ink.

Anyway, at twenty, as I sat in the waiting room while they pumped Joe’s inky, melancholy stomach, I had my first panic attack. It wasn’t that I was particularly worried about Joe. I didn’t really even like him that much. I didn’t want him to _die_ but… anyway the root of my panic attack was not Joe.

It was my _dad_.

I hate hospitals. I hate that the smell and the lighting always bring me back to _that_ night no matter how long it’s been, or how far away from that particular hospital I am.

I hate that the longer I stay in a hospital, the more and more likely a panic attack happening is.

I don’t want to say anything to Isabela or Merrill, both of whom look frazzled enough as it is.

But really… between the _blood_ and the _hospital smell_ and _Sebastian_ and…

 _Breathe, Garrett. Breathe._

 _Nope. It’s just getting worse. Breathing isn’t going to help. We’re past breathing._

I feel cold in the face and hot in the neck. I wipe my hands on my ( _Andy’s_ ) pants.

I just need to stand up. I just need--

That night in the ER with Joe, I had called Seb from a payphone. He hadn’t picked up until the third try. By that time, he was home, in Edinburgh, and obviously couldn’t get on a plane and magically fly the 11 hours between us and sit in the ER waiting room with me. But he had talked to me until I ran out of quarters.

And then, about five minutes after that, I’d passed out.

I stand up. Both of them look at me.

“I just need to… walk around,” I feel like I’m underwater. My voice doesn’t sound like me.

 _Breathe._

As I walk towards the doors, they open.

 _Fen._

Fen’s there in front of me, with a massive black equipment bag and a camera around his neck. And a brown bag that looks a little greasy in his hand.

“Hey!” he says, spotting me. I see him look at my chest, which is bloody.

 _**BLOOD.** _

“Garrett?”

 _I can’t breathe. I can’t hear._

“I…”

I feel a hand on my arm, one around my waist.

 _I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a man who is six-foot-five faint, but it’s nothing like the kind of fainting that women in corsets do in movies. I fall, like a long-limbed sack of bricks._

 _Oh, god, I don’t want to pass out. I really, really don’t._

“I need to go outside.”

I think I say this. I can’t hear, so I’m not--

 _Air._

I smell air, smoggy, hot asphalt-smelling parking lot air… but air nonetheless.

And I’m sitting. On something. Something hard.

He pushes me forward, my head between my knees.

“Breathe.”

I don’t know which one of us says it.

I can see again, after a minute or two.

I look up.

“Hey,” he’s dumped his brown bag on the bench I’m sitting on, and now pulls the strap of his camera over his head, then the strap of his bag, setting both things carefully next to my leg.

Watching him do this, a process, is kind of comforting. Something to focus on.

“You okay?”

I nod.

“Here,” he pulls a bottle of water out of the brown bag.

I drink.

He’s not touching me anymore, but standing close. He’s also, I notice, offering me a modicum of dignity by looking out at the parking lot and not at me being a huge, sweaty, bloody shaking disaster.

 _Yup. I’m handling this is the finest Garrett Hawke fashion. Suave. Debonair. Mysterious. Sweaty._

I groan and dip forward again, dumping some of the bottled water on the back of my neck.

“Hey!” he moves fast, around me, jerking his camera and equipment out of the way of the water, “Careful!”

“Oh, shit! Sorry!” I stand up, which, _Okay, wow_ , is a terrible idea.

 _I’mgonnapassout._

“Hey, man,” he’s there again, easing me back onto the bench, “Sit.”

I sit.

“Sorry…”

“It’s… okay. You didn’t hit it,” he shoves it all to the far end of the bench and then sits next to me, “I just can’t afford to replace any of that shit right now.”

“Sorry--”

“Garrett,” he snaps, “I said don’t worry about it.”

 _Perfect. Just exactly how I wanted this to go._

We sit quietly for a while.

“So… what happened?”

“He cut his wrist. Accidentally,” I add, at his sideways glance, “He was talking the whole way over though. I think he’s fine.”

“Your shirt,” he says, leaning forward, “That’s…”

“Yeah. Not paint this time,” I pluck it away from my chest. _Buh. Gotta stop looking!_

“I hate blood," he rolls his head back, scrunching his nose, "I have an extra shirt in my bag…” he smirks, “But I don’t think it’d fit you.”

“Probably not,” I’m very much aware of the two inches or so of my hairy lower back that’s exposed in this already too small, very borrowed t-shirt, “Nothing ever fits me.”

“How _tall_ are you?”

“Too tall. Six-five.”

“Christ.”

“I know…” I feel less submerged now. Less like I’m dying. “How tall are _you_?”

 _What? Really?_

“Five-seven.”

“My sister is five-seven.”

 _What. The Fuck._

“Oh yeah?” he looks at me seriously, “Is she cute?”

“Whuh--” _Oh, my god. A joke! He’s joking. Totally joking! Right?!_

He smiles.

 _Yup. Totally joking. It’s fine… he does not want to bang Bethany._

“So… if Andy’s probably fine, what happened back there?”

“Oh, that?” I wince, “That was a panic attack. I hate hospitals.”

“Oh.”

 _Yep. That’s all he’s getting right now._

“What time is it?” I ask.

He pulls his iphone out of his bag and slides it on.

I see his background.

 _The picture of my foam leaf._

“Uhh… 5:10.”

“Th-thanks.”

 _My leaf._

“You okay?” he puts it away.

“Yeah… just… been here a long ass time.”

“You hungry?”

“What?”

“Your hands…” _enormous and shaking, yes, just as dashing as ever_ , “I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, if you…”

“Garrett!”

We both turn to see Merrill coming through the glass doors.

“Oh, there you are! I didn’t know where you went! Are you okay? You’re all wet. Oh,” she falters, and kind of does a weird sweeping motion with her arms, looking like someone keeping a secret ( _badly_ ) in a seventh grade play, and stiffly says, “Oh, _hello_ , Fen.”

“Hello.”

“I, uh…” she shifts, awkwardly, then looks at me, “that nurse, Nathaniel… very handsome, isn’t he? I like his nose. Anyway, he came out and said that Andy is fine and that we should be able to take him home in about an hour or so.”

“Oh, great! Fantastic!”

“Izzy’s with him now. She wanted me to ask…” she looks at Fen, and then back at me, and then back at Fen, “if, uh, well, my car is small. I can probably fit everyone in… but it’ll be a squeeze. But, is… _your guest_ coming back with your car?”

 _Please, Merrill, I really need you to try and make this sound even more suspicious._

 _But more to the point…_

 _oh, fuck._

 _He might come back._

 _I hadn’t even considered it._

 _I just wanted Fen._

 _And I didn’t want Sebastian._

Poor Seb--

 _What?! No! He dumped me, broke my heart! And... rumspringa!_

I fish my phone out of my pocket ( _Andy's pocket_ ), and open it up.

I still have his number… of course I do… but I don’t think he has a phone. Why else would he have just slept on the porch?

I call my own landline, hoping he’ll answer.

Fen is watching me.

 _Why do I feel the need to sneak away and make this call?_

“Hello?”

“Se… Hey,” I stand up, and step across the loading bay, “it’s me.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah, they said we could take him in about an hour.”

“Great, I’ll--”

“Oh, no. Don’t. Don’t worry about it. Merrill… our friend Merrill is here. She’s got a big car. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. Okay. I um… I tried to clean your upholstery.”

 _Oh, god, Sebastian._

“You… didn’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind,” he says softly.

 _Who is this incredibly nice person and what has he done with that selfish git Sebastian Vael?_

I look over my shoulder. Merrill is standing and talking to Fen as he starts to put his camera away. That can’t be good.

“Anyway, I uh… I guess in terms of lodging…” he trails off, leading, then finally says, “I guess I can go to a motel.”

“Just…” I sigh, “stay there, tonight. On the couch. Then after that… maybe go stay with my mother.”

“Oh. Right. Sure. That’ll be…” I can hear him force a smile, “Nice.”

“Great. Okay. Bye, Sebastian.”

“Bye, Gare.”

 _Really wish he’d stop calling me that._

I go back over to Fen and Merrill.

“I guess now, we just wait. More.”

He shrugs, “Okay.”

I’m not going to force it. He came. And… I feel _better_ with him here.

Less in need of a fainting couch.

I’m sure a large part of that is the air.

But…

He looks up at me.

 _He came. To the emergency room._

“I hate hospitals, too,” he says as we walk through the doors, "I generally try to avoid them.”

“Me too.”


	18. Chapter 18

“I nearly died. I’m not kidding. I was at the pearly gates. I saw the face of God.”

Like a kid that just been released after getting his appendix removed, we offer Andy whatever he wanted for dinner.

He answered, without hesitation, _Bodahn’s_. It’s a divey burger place with really big booth tables that I’ve never been to before. When we walked in, the proprietor greeted us and showed great interest in Andy’s thickly bandaged wrist.

“Did you _really_?” Bodahn sets another basket of fries in the center of the table.

“Well…” Andy smiles, reaching with his uninjured hand for fries, “No. No to the dying bit. But I did see the face of God.”

“Jesus,” I say, quietly.

“One in the same, right? Kind of? Sort of?” Andy shrugs, then says to Bodahn, “Your son makes the best burgers I’ve ever eaten, by the way.”

“My boy’s got a gift,” he says, chest puffing proudly, before checking cherry Coke levels one last time.

“Is it going to be a big scar, do you think, Andy?” Merrill asks, swirling the straw in her milkshake.

“Probably. But, Nate said that the doctor who did my stitches is one of the best. Dr. MacTir. Not a talkative guy, but,” he winks at Merrill, “I think if someone's stitching your arm closed you don’t really want them distracted by captivating conversation, right?”

“It’s a shame that Cailan wasn’t there. Unbelievably good looking, that man,” Isabela says, taking the cherry from her Coke and dropping it into Andy’s.

“Isn’t he an OB/GYN?” Andy asks.

“Well… sure.”

“Those Theirins…” Andy shakes his head.

“Theirins? Like the bookstore?” I grab napkins.

“Alistair’s father is the chief of medicine,” Fen answers. I look at him, he's been awfully quiet sitting next to me, and he adds, “He used to talk about it. A lot.”

“Aww… I like Alistair,” Isabela says, “but he’d make a terrible doctor. He’s not…”

“Hard enough?” Andy offers.

“Yes! Exactly,” when Andy laughs, overtly lecherous, she elbows him very lightly, “Shut up, Tiger.”

“Listen, beautiful… you’re the expert on Alistair’s hardness or lack thereof at this table,” he smiles, sweetly, kissing her on the neck.

He’s in much higher spirits than I would be if it had been me bleeding profusely and getting stitched up. I’d also mostly likely just want to be taken home so that I could burrow under the covers and watch TV ( _Golden Girls_ ) and dwell on my own mortality. But, I obviously border on recluse-like tendencies sometimes… so… there’s that.

Fen's quiet.

Andy had been quite insistent that he at least join us for a meal. I'm trying to convince myself that his quietness isn't a bad sign and just that, really, it’s been tough to get a word in edgewise for any of us with Andy going on, and on…

“You know what movie I just re-watched the other day when I should have been writing? _Jaws_ ,” his hair is down and tucked behind his ears... and a little bloody. _There is blood everywhere_. Thank god Bodahn’s is empty except for us. It’s just not normal for people to go walking around lightly but thoroughly splattered in blood.

“Scar stories!” he says, as Bodahn brings another round of Cokes, “Let’s hear them! Around the table… your Best Of!”

“Like that scene in _Chasing Amy_?” Isabela asks, re-tucking some of his bloody hair with a grimace.

“Yeah. Which was an homage of the scene in _Jaws_.”

“But sexual.”

“Yes. Oh… do you want to do sexual scar--”

“No,” I cut him off.

Out of the corner or my eye, I see Fen smirk before taking a bite.

 _There is a swipe of mustard on his hand and I have a mad vivid flash of leaning over and just licking it off. I really like mustard. Spicy Brown Mustard. I'd put it on everything if I could. I... I just really like mustard._

“I’ll go first. This aside,” Andy lifts his wrist, then lowers it, and lifts his bloody t-shirt, “Open heart surgery, when I was a kid.”

The scar is faint, but long. I didn’t even notice it before. He lowers his shirt, then looks at Isabela expectantly. There's a fair amount of appreciative nodding around the table.

“Hmmm…” she thinks, squinting into the middle distance, “Oh!” She pulls the shoulder of her borrowed sweater down her shoulder, revealing a puckered mark, “Eighth Grade. P.E. This disgusting little boy shot me in the shoulder with an arrow during archery. Hurt like a bitch. Merrill?”

“Oh… I don’t really have anything that exciting,” she looks down at herself, then lifts the heel of her hand, “I broke a mirror. A very old, very expensive mirror. Cut my hand trying to put it back together. It bled and bled.”

“Did you ever put it back together?” Isabela asks, eyebrow arching.

“No… it was impossible,” she sighs.

“Garrett?”

 _Dog scar. Totally go with that one again._

Then I feel my face go red. Because… less than twenty-four hours ago, we were on the roof, and Fen touched it.

This has been a big twenty-four hours.

I lower my shirt, but not before feeling Fen’s body heat next to me, on suddenly my exposed skin. I look at Andy, who waggles his eyebrows at me quickly before looking at Fen.

“Fen?”

I swallow.

 _Oh, god. Too personal. Godammit, Andy! I know you’re… I know that something’s going on in that bloody blonde head of yours… but--_

He’s incredibly still for a painful couple of seconds, then, keeping his gaze locked on Andy as if accepting a challenge he wipes his hands with a napkin before unbuttoning two shirt buttons, pulling the neck of his shirt far enough to show the back of his shoulder.

 _His beautiful, warm, smooth caramel shoulder… and of course there are new tattoos there that I’ve never seen before… so… close… they are everywhere…_

He twists in the booth.

“What is that?” Andy leans forward, smiling softly at me.

“My sister stabbed me in the back,” Fen says, flatly.

“What?!” Isabela crawls forward to look closer, “With a knife?”

He laughs, “Pair of scissors. We were kids. We played... rough in our house.”

He shifts back, re-buttons, and finishes his burger.

…

“I’m cold,” I hear Andy’s teeth chattering. I normally have layers to spare… but not today.

We’re standing at the curb waiting for Merrill to bring her comically tiny car around while Bela and Fen wait for Bodahn to wrap up leftovers (he threw in some ‘extra’ leftovers on the house).

I put my arm around his shoulders instead. He’s shivering.

 _It’s not that cold._

“You okay?”

“Huh? Yeah. Totally fine.” _Liar._ “So… he came to the ER, huh?”

“He did.”

He smiles up at me. _Shit, he looks tired._

“I’m glad. Wingman Rule Number Five; Everything is an Opportunity. Including the Emergency Room.”

“I had a panic attack.”

“ _Smooth_ , Garrett. And, hey, I appreciate the concern but there was no need to get apoplexic about me.”

I laugh, “Yeah…”

“But… he stayed?”

I nod.

“You _are_ very warm.”

“I know.”

Merrill pulls up, and at just about the same time the door opens behind us.

We turn together. Fen’s carrying two large plastic grocery bags. He hands one to me, which I take as Bela pulls Andy against herself.

“You coming, Fen?” Andy asks, turning to look over Bela’s shoulder as they walk to the car.

“No. I, uh, I live nearby,” he looks at me, “calling it an early night.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night. Glad you didn’t… die.”

Andy laughs, and the two of them disappear into the backseat.

“Hey--”

“Well--”

We talk at the same time. _Adorable_.

“Thanks. For… coming?” I rub the back of my neck with my free hand.

“Sure. Yeah. No… I mean… it was this or stay and take more pictures of Connor in his letterman jacket with his overbearing mother hovering all afternoon…” he shrugs, “Emergency Room and burgers won out.”

“Cool.”

 _Cool._

 _But… tomorrow is Sunday! Sunday-Special Sunday._

“I’ll… uh… see you.”

“Yeah. And, hey… you know, text me when you want to… if you still want to…”

 _Picture. He wants to take my picture. With his camera. And my face._

“I… yeah, I will.”

“Okay. Well,” he ducks his head and shifts the camera bag a little.

“Night.”

 _I want to hug him. Or... no. I want to kiss him. Kiss him stupid. But... I'm not that mental. Right? And anyway, after someone sees you have a panic attack, certainly that puts you at the level of hugging goodbye, right? Hugging is reasonable._

 _But there’s all that equipment._

 _And three sets of endearingly over-involved eyes no doubt glued to us._

I lift my hand.

Or, rather, my hand lifts itself.

I can see it moving.

I have no control over it.

 _Arm!_

I pat his shoulder.

 _Pat. Pat. Pat._

Three times.

 _Awkward as shit._

He looks at my hand.

“ _Sorry_ ,” I turn, “Night, Fen.”

Inside, sitting in the front seat ( _Merrill’s car smells like cucumber_ ) we sit in total silence.

He turns and starts walking home, his face lit from beneath by his phone.

And then… gone.

“Oh, kitten,” Isabela says sadly, leaning forward as much as she can with Andy’s legs over hers, “The upside is that he keeps coming back for more of… whatever the hell it is that you’re doing.”

…

We put away the leftovers, and then sit around at Andy’s place. The three of them are on the bed. I sit in his office chair ( _that bed… I’m not ready to come in direct contact with it again_ ). Isabela is combing her fingers through his hair while the rest of us pick through a little pile of Halloween candy he's acquired somewhere.

Merrill yawns.

 _We should get going._

 _I’ve got… Sebastian._

 _And work in the morning._

 _But mostly, there’s a good-Samaritan version of Sebastian sleeping on my couch._

“I think--”

There’s a knock at the door.

Isabela gets up and opens it.

It’s Nate.

“Oh. Hey.”

“Hey.”

I glance at Merrill, who ignores me and is staring openly at Nate who, admittedly, is _really_ wearing those scrubs.

“Merrill,” I clear my throat and stand, “I think… I’m really tired.”

“What? Oh, yes. I’m sure.” She gives Andy a quick hug, drawing his attention from Nate and Isabela standing in the doorway with a start.

“Feel better, Andy.”

“I think I will, yeah.”

We go to the door.

Isabela looks at Andy.

“I guess I’ll--”

“No. Please,” _I’ve not been seduced by Andy. I’ve witnessed various stages of his seduction of others, out in the field. I’ve observed it. I’m standing next to Isabela as he’s lying there, leaning back on the pillows, legs spread, bandaged wrist lying across his belly… as he looks at her first, and then at Nate, who is standing on the other side of me… I feel something like seduction-whiplash_ , “stay.”

It’s pretty intense. I blush. _How does he do that?_

Isabela smiles, “You need _two_ people to take care of you tonight, Tiger?”

Nate’s coat is coming off.

“I’m wounded,” he smiles, lifting his wrist.

“Okay, Merrill, time to go!” I push her gently.

“But--”

“It’s past our bedtime.”

“Oh. Oh! All right…” she lets me guide her out, begrudgingly, looking back until the door closes with a soft click behind us.


	19. Chapter 19

It’s a really quiet morning.

Kind of weirdly quiet, actually.

Bianca’s is… empty.

Andy’s not even here. Andy’s _always_ here.

Did the Rapture happen?

I mean, okay… I know that’s stupid. But… I think about it.

There is literally no one in the shop.

No one outside on the street.

No one at the bus stop across the street.

No one.

I go over to Andy’s table and wipe it down, _again_ , even though nothing’s even touched it since the last time I did this five minutes ago.

 _Rapture? Zombie outbreak? Everyone’s fled to nuclear bomb shelters and no one told me about the bomb and I’m about to turn into a mutant?_

 _I’m going to go with the last one._

 _Because, definitely, I’m going to be the one that turns into a mutant._

I watch red and orange leaves blow across the empty sidewalk through the window.

 _Am I ‘I am Legend’?_

 _Oh, god. I do have a dog._

 _Oh, god, no! It doesn’t end well for the dog! Bradley!_

 _I don’t want to be 'I Am Legend'_ \--

The door opens.

I just about have a heart attack.

“Fen! Where is everybody?”

He’s breathing heavy, standing there in the doorway and, _fuck_ , he’s beautiful with the morning light behind him. _How does a person have skin that perfect in real life?_

He pulls the strap of his messenger bag over his head in a fluid motion and walks towards me, dropping the bag on the way.

“Shut up,” he growls, backing me up against the table, “Just stop _talking_.”

“I--”

He grabs my jaw, hard, his fingers hot and rough.

 _Oh fuck_.

He pushes himself between my legs, his hips between my thighs.

“You _talk_ too fucking much,” he’s holding my face level with his and, I can’t breathe, studying me with green eyes blown dark, like a _wolf_. His breath is hot and sweet, and I can _taste_ him as I breathe.

“Fen--”

He pulls me, hard, and his mouth efficiently shuts me up. He guides my head, fingers strong and winding tight in my hair, and it hurts.

 _Don’t stop._

God… his lips are perfect.

 _His tongue…_

I’m shaking.

His tongue brushes, hot and wet, across my bottom lip. I gasp into his mouth as his teeth close, hard.

 _I’m dying. My heart—_

 _I’m just going to keel over._

 _Wait, what are we doing?!_

His hands drop to my hips, pulling me closer to him, and, fuck, he’s there against me. Hard.

 _I don’t care what we’re doing. Please don’t stop, please--_

I haven’t forgotten what he felt like, before, in Andy’s bed. He’s powerful. His whole body. Tight. Hard.

Fuck. He’s…

 _Hard. I’m so hard. I’m so--_

He pulls away from me, and we both gasp, pant. He’s untying the bow at the front of my apron.

His fingers are fucking gorgeous.

I want them.

I want them everywhere.

He pulls hard, and I’m untied. He lifts the neck over my head, catching my ears.

He smiles.

 _Wolf_.

I grab his hand, and he looks at me his eyes are black… _do I look like that, too? I feel hot. I’m sure I’m red. I don’t fucking care.._

He moans, _beautiful_ , as I close my lips around two of his fingers and suck, and curl my tongue around them, between them.

He tastes like espresso. It’s in his skin.

He’s pulling my belt free with his other hand. Rough. Hungry.

The entire center of my being is right there, right below his hand. I just need him to--

“ _Ahh_!” his fist closes around my cock, and I curl forward, hands braced on his shoulders. He’s hot under my hands, against my skin, through his shirt.

He pumps.

“ _Fuck_ , Garrett,” his voice is raw, and deep. He speaks Latin with that voice. That’s his Latin voice. Latin _and_ my name.

I smile against him, and close my eyes, and he strokes me, his other hand sliding up under my shirt, his fingers wet from my mouth.

“Fen-- _ah_!”

“Touch me,” he gasps, “I want you… I want you to.”

“ **Garrett**?”

 _What?!_

“Please.”

He’s begging but not asking.

My hands shake, but I find his belt. It’s just like mine.

“ **GARRETT?!** ”

“ _Please, Garrett…_ ” his voice is deep, and… _accented_.

Scottish.

I pull back. I look at him.

“This isn’t really happening, is it?”

He brings both hands up to my face, cupping my jaw gently. I can smell my sweat and my cock on his skin.

“No.”

“ **Garrett? Are you okay?** ”

 _Well, fuck._

I open my eyes.

I’m in bed, flat on my back, one hand on my cock the other over my mouth.

 _Perfect._

“Garrett?”

“I’m fine!”

“Are you,” I can hear him on the other side of the door, “you were… I thought you were ill.”

 _Sebastian Vael, cock-blocking me even in my sleep._

I swallow, “M’fine!”

“Er… I thought it was a nightmare. You used to… you used to have them.”

 _And there goes the hard-on._

He's right. I did have them. And I'd wake him up. And he'd hold on to me until I fell asleep again.

I stand up, pointlessly adjusting my pajama bottoms, and limp towards the door.

I open it.

He’s standing there in the dark.

Bradley squeezes past me and jumps up on him, paws on his thighs. Sebastian scratches his wide head but looks at me.

“I’m fine. Really.”

“I could hear you from the couch. I was worried.”

He smells like he took a shower. I imagine he would, after trying to clean blood out of upholstery. _Blood. I’d stood in a really hot shower scrubbing with a new loofah for about twenty minutes when I got home, just to make sure I got it all off._

He’s wearing sweatpants and a white t-shirt and he kind of glows in the dark.

 _I can’t help but think that, celibate or not, he must still know the difference between happy moans and sad moans…_

 _Unless my happy-moans actually do sound like sad-moans._

 _That would be… what if they do? I’d never know. They sound fine to me._

“It wasn’t a nightmare. Just a… dream.”

“Oh. Sorry, then. Sorry I… woke you.”

He’s wearing the locket. It’s small, dark against the t-shirt. Not clunky… very thin and very gold, just like it always was. He’s always worn it. It was his sister’s.

I _remember_ it. I remember tasting that weird metal tang when I’d kiss his neck, feeling the chain with my lips…

I realize that he’s looking at my chest.

And that I’m not wearing a shirt.

And this suddenly becomes _incredibly_ familiar and _incredibly_ uncomfortable.

“Right, well…” I start close the door.

“Right. Uh.”

Bradley stays with him. _That traitor_!

“Goodnight, Seb.”

He smiles as the door closes.

 _Okay. I need to get him out of the house… tomorrow. There’s no getting around that._

 _I’ll call mom on a break… she’ll be… delighted._

I lay back down, spreading out across the whole bed now that Benedict Arnold has vacated his half and have a quick joyless wank into a pair of my boxers before falling asleep again.

 _He needs to go because I’m starting to not hate him._

 _And that’s the last thing I need right now._


	20. Chapter 20

“Do you know what this is about?”

“Not a bloody clue.”

“Title doesn’t give anything away, does it?”

“Would anyone like a mint? I brought Andes mints. They’re my favorite.”

“I’ll take one Merrill,” I extend my hand towards her, over Andy and Isabela’s laps.

“I’ll unwrap it for you,” she drops a warm, unwrapped mint into my palm.

“...Thanks.”

Between us, both Andy and Bela are scrutinizing a shared program.

“ _Quiver – An Evening_. I hate to admit it, but I think Varric’s bordering on pretentious here,” Andy says under his breath.

“Since when has pretentious every bothered you?” Isabela asks, snatching the minimalistic program from him.

“Hmm,” he scratches idly at his wrist.

“Stop that,” I elbow him. The seats are uncomfortable. Unpadded, long wooden seats that I highly suspect were at one time church pews.

 _Oh, pew, who could have known that when you were supporting the pious asses of the devout you would someday find yourself here, in a warehouse by the river, supporting four heathens while they waited for 'Quiver – An Evening' to begin?_

Speaking of pious asses…

Sebastian is finally relocating to my mother’s tomorrow. He’s been in my house for almost a week. Six days, five nights… not including the night he spent on the porch. Mother keeps putting me off… she needs to _clean_ or she has a _gynecologist_ appointment… or…

Or she’s meddling in my life and hoping that I’ll magically fall right back into bed with him because she thinks I’ll never find anyone else.

 _Mother_.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my room, in bed, with the door closed… watching _Veronica Mars_ on my laptop. Ultimately… it’s just easier to not be around him.

To… to be a big boy and hide in my room under the covers.

Well, not literally under the covers. That would get hot.

There are about fifteen or so other people here, sitting on pews scattered around what is ostensibly a stage. I know it’s a stage because there is a black wooden box in the center of a pool of light.

Everyone looks very, very hip. Isabela and Andy and even Merrill have outdone me. I never know what to wear to these things. Never. I feel like I’m dressed like someone’s dad, and not in an ironic way.

Maybe I’ll just play it off as ironic. I can _be_ ironic.

“Kitten,” Bela leans across Andy’s lap, intentionally pressing more of herself against him than is entirely necessary, “I didn’t ask… how’s the thirteenth disciple?”

Andy laughs.

“Ugh. Moving out tomorrow. I’m driving him over after work.”

“To your mother’s?” she grins, “I would love to meet Mother Hawke.”

The house lights go out, “Got any plans for Thanksgiving?”

They both look at me, and say at the same time, with the same manic intensity, “No!”

And the house goes black.

A woman comes out. _She’s really familiar…_

Oh! It’s the redhead from Theirin’s party… the one playing the guitar.

Did Varric write a musical? Her voice is so pretty—

Oh. There goes her shirt.

Oh.

There go her pants.

“Did Varric write a dirty play?” I whisper to Andy.

He leans close to my ear, “I think he may have. Shh.”

“I want to tell you a story…” she purrs, making eye contact with just about everyone, “…and most of it is true.”

I hear a _click_.

Behind me, in the dark. Behind and above. _Click_.

I turn, straining my neck.

 _What is that?_

Andy elbows me, and I turn back around.

 _Click_.

Behind me. I… okay, I know it’s a camera.

And maybe it’s stupid… but…

My eyes adjust to the dark. I can see him, over by the big loading-bay doors, up the little ramp. Fen.

 _I can tell by the hair._

Does he know that I’m here?

Probably not.

 _Why is he here??_

 _Obviously, Garrett, he’s taking production photos._

 _Right. Yes._

I hear water falling on stage and turn, finally, to see the beautiful redhead pouring a glass of water down her back as she sits on the box, facing upstage.

 _Click._

He’s closer. I can hear him like sonar. I know where he is based soley on sound. _I’m like a bat. Or a dolphin. I’m definitely more of a dolphin than a bat, for Christ’s sake. Big stupid grin, compulsive masturbation... not that dolphins can masturbate... but they would if they could. Oh, they would. I watched a documentary. Very sexual They just... do it all the time. Rubbing and... Yup. Dolphin._

 _Click._

He’s wearing all black, of course. Focused entirely on what he’s doing… I…

I know that I should be watching the play. The performance piece. The… _Evening_. But I can’t look away from him.

 _I’m a total creep_.

Yes. No doubt.

But this is the first time I’ve ever had the chance to… _watch_ him. He doesn’t know I’m here and he’s doing what he does and… fuck, it’s hot.

Hot and fascinating.

I’m more than a little turned on.

 _Because I’m a creep_.

Watching the stage, he moves silently to the end of our pew and sits, camera in his hands ( _his hands_ ) and just watches for a little while.

He’s smiling, watching her.

And then his head turns.

 _And here I am, a big stupid dolphin. Staring at him._

He just stares back.

There’s about two feet between us but it feels like two miles.

The stage light grows brighter, expanding the pool of light’s size and intensity as she stands, wet and naked, and walks upstage.

I look away from him, and at the stage, drawn like a junebug to the bright light.

 _Click_.

I look back at him.

He smiles.

He took my picture.

…

Her name is Leliana, I find out from Varric. He says she's his _muse_.

She’s wrapped in a kimono in the makeshift lobby (a bunch of shoji screens put up between the stage area and the doors with a couple of tables with wine and cookies), and talking animatedly with Isabela and the director, and incredibly good looking man with a ponytail and an earring named Duncan.

Andy and Merrill are talking to Varric. I’m standing with them, but trying really hard to just… agree with them. I’m ashamed… but I have no idea what happened on stage over the last two hours. It wasn’t over my head… I was just…

Fen’s leaning against a table, focused on the screen of his camera.

 _I was distracted_.

“Garrett,” Merrill says, “would you get me a cookie?”

“Huh? Oh, sure…”

She smiles sweetly up at me, and Andy puts his arms around her, pulling her in close as they continue to talk to Varric about _Quiver – An Evening_.

A cookie.

Cookies are on the table.

The table that Fen is leaning against.

 _Merrill just Wingmanned me_!

I clear my throat.

 _Buh. It’s fine, just… getting a cookie. I have a task. A quest. Cookie time._

He looks up.

“Did you…” _his hands_ , are holding his camera, “good pictures?”

He shrugs, “The lighting wasn’t great. It never is here… as it’s not actually a theater, hard to get the lighting right.”

“Do you… take pictures here often?”

 _Hey, Fen, come here often?_

“Yeah. Whenever an artist comes in. I, uh… I saw that this was Varric’s. I didn’t know if you…”

“He invited us. Moral support.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he looks back at his camera, “what’d you think?”

“She, um… she was very naked.”

He clears his throat, “Yeah. Very. Emotionally it was a _naked_ performance.”

“That’s… exactly what I meant.”

He smiles, “Thought so.”

“I’ve seen my fair share of naked plays. I'm not... prudish. Don’t get me wrong. I was _in_ a naked play, once--”

 _That_ gets me eye contact.

“Really?”

“Yeah. A, uh… oh, it was this awful Bacchanal thing. Very embarrassing. My mother came.”

“Your _mother_ came to your naked play?”

“She’s very supportive.”

“Well. That’s good of her.”

Much to my horror, she had also recorded the damn thing. Always a completist, the naked-Bacchanal now sits on our shelf on a VHS beside my high school production of _Oklahoma!_ and, distressingly, by my third grade turn as two of the three little pigs.

He turns off the camera.

I stand there for a second with my arms kind of out at my sides. I drop them.

“I… came for a cookie.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, just,” I step forward and lean in towards the plate of cookies and paper napkins. _She didn’t specify what kind._

 _White Chocolate Macadamia Nut it is!._

“Hey, um…” he doesn’t move, and I’m kind of reaching around him to get to the cookies. He smells good, kind of warm and spicy. I breathe weird, shallow, “Garrett,” he touches my arm.

I swallow, and I know he can hear it.

“Y-yeah?”

“Do you…” he’s turned towards me, and I can feel his breath on my neck, “what are you doing tomorrow night? I thought… if you’re not busy…”

“ _Fuck_!”

“What?!”

“I have…” _I have to move my leaning-towards-not-celibate ex-boyfriend into my mother’s house and have dinner with both of them as per my her demands, er, request_ , “I have a thing. Tomorrow night.”

“Oh. I was just… I have the night open. I thought we could… you could come over and…” he lifts his camera, then shrugs, “Some other time then.”

“Yeah! Oh, yeah. The picture. I,” _I am squeezing the fuck out of this cookie_ , “I really want to. I’ll shave.”

 _Huh?!_

He smiles, “You don’t have to. You can… if you want… but… I think…” he looks away, “you look good.”

I break Merrill’s cookie in half. “ _Youdotoo_ ,” I blurt out.

He laughs, not looking at me, “Thanks.”

...

By the time we leave, I've eaten, like, five of those cookies and I'm warm and happy and a little bit wired.

Fen walks out of the warehouse, raising his hand at me and, definitely, getting my eye contact as he goes.

My fists are buried in my pockets and I flail to get one of them out in time to wave back, but he's already gone by the time I do... so I end up just doing a weird little pelvic thrust instead. And grinning. _Dolphin_.

"Ready?" Andy's given Merrill his coat and the sleeves hang way past her finger tips.

"Where's Isabela?"

"She's being a theater groupie tonight... waiting by the stage door, etcetera," he smiles.

"Do you guys want to come over?" I'm giddy. _I've had... a lot of sugar_.

"On a school night, Garrett?"

"We could... watch a movie?"

"With St. Belt Buckle?"

"In my room."

"Oh!" _now he sounds interested_ , "I'm in. Merrill?"

"Oh, sure. We're opening tomorrow, though, Garrett, so... let's not stay up too late, yeah?"

We go back to my apartment, sneak past the dark living room, and lay on my bed watching _Roman Holiday_ on my laptop until, at some point, overcome by the soothing reliability of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, the cozy warmth of a bed with three people in it, and the utter exhaustion of our late-twenties, we fall asleep.


	21. Chapter 21

_That feels nice..._

Wait.

 _What?_

 _Someone_ small and soft sighs and tucks their head under my chin.

And _someone else_ long and blonde and significantly less soft snores behind me, breathing against the back of my neck.

I crack one eye open.

I look over Merrill’s shoulder at my clock. 4:55 am.

She’s lying on my arm which is more or less totally asleep.

I wince and try to move to a better position to get some circulation back, but Andy pretty much keeps me locked in. He’s a complete dead weight back there.

 _This is perfectly normal behavior for three adults who are not sleeping together, right?_

Well… if it isn’t, I don’t really care anymore. It’s… _nice_. I make the active decision to not think about it and just lie there, wedged in between two friendly sleeping bodies.

It reminds me of the camping trips we used to take, before we moved to Kirkwall. We had two tents, Mom and Dad in one and the three of us in the other. Bethany talked in her sleep and Carver kicked, hard… but it was comforting. I felt really calm having my family there like that, with _me_ , safe and happy. Some kind of pack instinct or something.

I guess this is the same kind of thing.

Andy grunts and scoots closer, throwing his arm over both Merrill and I, settling in with his cheek against my shoulder blade.

The alarm will go off in four minutes.

I’m almost asleep again when it does.

...

Merrill repurposes parts of her outfit and manages to come up with a respectable looking permutation for the day in my car on the way over. We left Andy sleeping… no reason to make anyone get up this early unless they have to for some life and death reason, like serving coffee to people.

I make us a couple of espressos to get us through the day. Merrill is chipper (a little too chipper) and I drag myself through the first couple of hours.

Fen comes in, promptly at 9:05, wearing a black sweater I’ve never seen before. It looks old, kind of thin, and the hem at the neck has separated from the rest of the sweater a little. But he doesn’t look disheveled. He just looks…

 _I want to vault over this counter and pin him down on the floor next to the cream and sugar island._

Yeah. That’s how he looks.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

I get his coffee. He pays.

“So, uh…” he glances up at me, and then back down at his cup, “have fun, at your thing. Tonight.”

“Hah. Yeah.”

 _What could be more fun than chicken picatta with Mom and Sebastian, Team 'Let’s Make This Happen'?_

“Is it… a _date_?”

I can barely hear him.

“Huh?! Oh, no! No! No, no, no… No. Not even… not even a little bit. _No_.. I’m… having dinner with my mother.”

“Oh,” he smirks quickly, then gnaws on his bottom lip, perfect, full bottom lip… “that’s fun.”

“Oh, yeah,” I roll my eyes. _God I hope that didn’t look as stupid as I think it did._

“Okay. Well,” he sips and starts to turn, “Coffee’s strong today.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” his eyes are just so fucking pretty, and so _green_ , “It’s good.”

I want to paint. I haven’t painted anything in a while… and nothing substantial for even longer. I rub my fingers against my palm. _After I leave Sebastian at Mom’s… I’ll go home, have a glass of wine and paint._

I’ll paint something _green_.

...

After our shift, I drop Merrill off and then drive home.

Andy never showed up in the shop today. He’d mentioned that his publisher had recently come down on him about getting more of the next _Justice & Vengeance_ to her… so… maybe he actually got some work done today.

I can’t park in my normal spot.

Because a car is already parked there.

No. A car is _still_ parked there.

“Huh.”

I park around the corner and walk. Andy never left.

Well, I’m sure Bela had some exciting stories… assuming he was brave enough to venture back into her apartment after his near death experience.

I open the door and walk in.

“Seb?”

I hear Bradley pounding towards me, enormous feet on the hardwood.

“Hey, buddy!” I let him lick my face, because I love him and I didn’t care about his breath which is, especially awful today, “Someone’s getting some more green-chewies,” I kiss the top of his head and push him down.

“Seb? Are you ready?”

His stuff is packed up in a neat pile next to the couch.

But the couch is empty.

And the place is eerily quiet.

 _Rapture? Dammit! The pious bastard was right all along._

“Seb?”

It’s not that big of a place. And he doesn’t have a car… unless he went for a walk.

Not in the yard. Not in the bathroom.

 _No_.

My door is closed.

 _NO_.

I open the door.

“Oh, _Jesus_!”

I look away as fast as I can, staring at my Chucks but not fast enough to not see… everything.

So much _skin_. Red hair and blonde hair. Two long bodies twisted together in the sheets ( _in my sheets_ ), heads close together at the foot of the bed ( _my_ ), face to face, Andy above Sebastian pinning his forearms to the ( _my_ ) mattress. Startled, they both look at me, Sebastian staring at me upside down and slack-jawed.

“Garrett! Uh…”

I have my hand over my eyes, and I back up, hitting my funny bone on the door-frame, “Ow! Fuck! Uh. No, uh…” _it smells like sex… my room smells like sex… sex that I’m not involved and that’s.. so wrong!_ “I’ll uh…”

I hear skin on skin, muttered apologies.

 _Jesus, guys!_

I’m trying to get out of there. I hear a zipper zip up.

Out of the room, Bradley thunders past me, delighted to have the door to his bed open again.

“Oh, fuck no! No! Garrett!” I hear Andy yelp weakly behind me, "Call him off!"

 _Naked and afraid of dogs!_

I start laughing.

Hard.

Uncontrollably.

I’m crying and doubled over, leaning against the wall in the hallway, until I slowly start sliding down to the floor.

“B-Br… Bradley! Come… come’re! Come here!”

I can’t stop laughing. It hurts. My gut hurts, my sides hurt! I’m wheezing! Sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around my ribs, legs splayed and… I’m going to laugh myself to death.

 _Their faces! They both just looks so… surprised!_

Bradley comes back to me, worried for my well being it seems, and maybe he should be because as far as I can tell I’ve gone hysterical and I let him lick my face again because it makes him feel better.

“Oh, god. Oh… god!”

I hear Andy muttering curses under his breath.

“Garrett…” Sebastian is standing here awkwardly, dressed again, “Garrett I’m so--”

“Jesus, Sebastian,” I wipe tears and dog spit off of my face with the back of my hand, “I… I don’t care. I’d rather you guys hadn’t done it in there. I… _sleep_ in there.”

And I’m off again.

 _I feel like I need my inhaler for the first time in years. Except I don’t really. I don’t. I’m fine. I just…_

“Jesus, Andy, you're a m-machine!”

He’s hanging back, dressed again.

“We didn’t… uh…” Sebastian is completely red, “we didn’t, not all--”

“Don’t tell me!” _why is this so funny?! I must look insane!_ “I don’t.. I don’t…”

Andy’s stripping the bedding.

“What are you d-doing?”

He looks up at me, trying hard not to smile, “I’m going to wash your sheets. And your quilt.”

“Not the quilt!” I slip down the rest of the way, lying on the floor and laughing, “My Grannie Amell made that quilt for me, you per-perverts!”

Andy starts laughing, hair falling over his face as he strips the bed, “Well, Grannie Amell made a sturdy quilt. That’s… craftsmanship!”

“ _Ahaha_!!”

Bradley lies down next to me, quietly accepting his master's decent into madness.

Sebastian balls his fists at his sides, and then walks over me, going into the bathroom, shutting the door loudly and turning on the shower.

“You’re… Rumspringa! Andy… you’re.. Gay Rumspringa!” I’m babbling and laughing from the floor, shaking and struggling to pull in a full breath. “What… w-what the fuck happened?!”

Andy walks over me, carrying an enormous armload of all of my bedding, and says, “He made me waffles,” like that explains everything, “Going to the Laundromat. Want to come with me?”

I’m dying.

“Y-yes. Give me… a minute!”

I see my headstone.

 __

Garrett Malcolm Hawke

 _1983 – 2011._

 _Beloved Son, Brother, Friend, Barista, Masturbator._

 _Died laughing._

 _Thanks, Andy._


	22. Chapter 22

He won’t look at me.

 _I feel… well, a small part of me wants to feel bad for him._

But I don’t.

 _I can’t stop thinking about his face. Abject horror morphing from what looked like, well, what I know from experience is his happiest of O-faces._

From experience.

 _Oh, god. So, now Andy and I have both had sex with a mutual person._

 _That’s never happened to me before._

 _Well, I mean, there are plenty of people that Sebastian had slept with on the side while we were together… not that I know any of them. Oh, yeah. That little treasure from our time together. While I was the calendar boy for monogamy, he… didn’t really get it._

But that was years ago.

 _I’m…_

Fuck.

 _I’m finally over it._

I open the trunk and wait for him to skulk from the porch to the car.

He’s carrying his backpacking-pack with a Jesus fish patch on the flap and scowling.

 _Dinner’s just going to be so fun. Funner by the minute._

Except that it totally is.

Andy told me everything while stuffing all by bedding into two washing machines.

He woke up alone, then just stayed in bed for a while, as is apparently his way.

“I think better then than any other time of day. For writing.”

So, he’d stayed in bed just laying there thinking until out of nowhere Sebastian had opened the bedroom door. Presumably to let Bradley in. But… okay, it _had_ crossed my mind that Sebastian might have been going into my room every day while I was out. I’m not messy, per se, but the room had just seemed… tidier overall since he more or less moved in.

So Andy’s lying there in my bed, fully dressed, but… in bed. And Sebastian freaks out. He was not expecting anybody to be in there. They both have a good laugh about it, make introductions.

And then Sebastian just… offers to make him waffles.

“Which, I thought, _I fucking love waffles_ ,” he said this as he sat down next to me on the bench by the quarter dispenser.

“Who doesn’t?”

“So… I come out, after he… put that dog outside. So I come out, and I sit down at the table and he’s there, just, making waffles. Amazing waffles. I’ve never seen anyone waffle like that guy waffles.”

And they’re talking, and waffling, and then eating.

“It was pleasant enough. He was wearing sweatpants, so, there was no need for his… holy accessory. So… it was nice. And then we finished… and I offered to wash the dishes. And I’m standing there at the sink, and he comes up behind me…”

“No!”

He had nodded, watching the dryers in front of us, smiling, “He _seduced_ me.”

“Shut the front door!”

He had raised his hands innocently, “I swear! I was… shocked. But… into it. I mean… I was on a waffle high and, he… well, whatever he’s been doing in the church for the last couple of years hasn’t hurt his technique at all.”

They had… started there. Sebastian had _techniqued_ him. In my kitchen.

“Oh, god!” I started laughing again, drawing attention to myself, “On what?”

“The floor. You need to mop, Garrett.”

They had then relocated to the bed. _My_ bed.

And… spent the rest of the day there.

“You’re really not mad?”

“What?” I had looked at him, “No. I mean… I guess I probably should be. A little? But… no.”

“Thank fucking god!” he hugged me, still smelling like sex but sounding relieved, “I’d have felt awful.”

“If anything, you kind of solved a problem for me. With your dick.”

He laughed, “I try.”

“You’re like… a Jehovah’s witness, but, in reverse. Luring the devout away... like... the Pied-Fucker or something.”

“I think…” he sucked air in through his teeth, letting me go, “I think he thinks that I’m you new… your new guy.”

“WHAT?”

He shrugged, and grimaced, “He mentioned something… I… I think he thought I was the guy you’re into now.”

“And that jesus-freak screwed you anyway? Bastard!”

“Hmm. Other way around. But," he pulled half of his hair up, "Yeah. Thought you should know.”

So… there’s that.

While I’m happy that Sebastian did get it out of his system, or whatever because while I was doing my best to avoid him, that pressure was getting volatile… I’m deep down pissed that he did it with the person he thought was my new prospect.

Who he thought might have been, without knowing anything about him, _Fen_.

So. Not a lot of sympathy but I’m amused and indignant… which is a funny combination of things to be.

“Come on, we’re already really late. She’s called me five times.”

He dumps his pack in the trunk. Glowering.

“What’s that?”

“Huh?”

He points.

“That.”

“Oh… just--”

He flips the edge of the Box of Porn open.

He looks at me, “Garrett.”

 _I’m dying_.

I cling to the trunk and just laugh, letting go to wipe tears from my eyes.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this much in one day. Never.

“It’s not mine, I… I swear!”

I have my hands on my thighs, trying to catch my breath.

I look up at him. He’s not wearing his stupid belt buckle anymore, and his hair dried a little looser. He’s kept it slicked back which looks weird. It looks so much better like this. I always liked his wavy hair.

 _I can acknowledge that he looks nice. Relaxed? But, wow, I am so not interested. Experience be damned._

He smiles, begrudgingly, “It’s not really your thing, is it? Juggz.”

“No!”

He takes one of the magazines out.

“Oh, God. It’s… crunchy.”

“Ahh!!! I need to sit down!”

He flips through it anyway while I drop down onto the curb trying to collect myself. I can’t drive like this, I’ll kill us both.

“Carver is disgusting in so many ways.”

“Garrett, I’m--”

“You know what, Seb? I don’t… I don’t want to have this conversation right now. I… I’m, happy for you. If you’re… finding yourself, again. Or whatever. But… let’s just get dinner out of the way.”

“I’m sorry about Andy,” he blurts out, “I don’t know what I was thinking…”

“It’s… fine,” I stand up.

“ _What_?" he stares at me, "I’ve got to admit, Garrett, you’re a lot more liberal now than--”

 _I don’t want to correct him._

 _It’s actually kind of gratifying to watch him squirm._

 _Makes me seem all... very French._

 _Right?_

“Andy’s a… big boy. He’s free to do what he wants. But… listen, we’ll talk about it later. Just, put the porn down and lets go eat chicken with Mom.”


	23. Chapter 23

Here’s the thing about Sebastian.

When we found each other, we were dealing with a lot of the same no-way-to-prepare-for-it, life-changing stuff.

My dad had _just_ died.

His sister had died after a long drawn out, family consuming illness.

We were… _coping_.

Add to the equation that we were both young and gay and neither one of us had ever really been with anyone else or fallen in love or been entirely honest about who we were… we were _new_. We were new, together.

Would we have stayed together for as long as we had if it didn’t all come together in a perfect storm?

No. Probably not.

He was more extroverted, more reckless, more… everything. He tried things… schools, drugs, people, and then he’d quit them, and he was on to the next with wild abandon.

I was content to stay in my room and sketch, maybe smoke a little weed, paint, have sex with him, and only him, then brush and floss and go to sleep.

I’m standing at the butcher block (the one we moved to this house at great expense) cutting tomatoes for the salad and I’m watching his back as he drains pasta in the sink.

We were coping then.

 _I think I’m… coped._

 _But him?_

“Ahh!” he sets the pot back down on the stovetop and sucks his thumb, “bloody hot!”

I don’t think Seb ever stopped coping.

My mother fusses over his red thumb for a minute or two, then stands at my shoulder to supervise my tomato slicing, “Mind your fingers, dear.”

She catches my eye, and gives me the look.

The _Doesn’t He Look Great, Garrett?_ Look.

She’s definitely had some wine.

The chicken picatta had to be reheated, but it’s still good. Very good.

It’s dark and she lit the candles in the centerpiece.

 _She’s really trying here._

 _She really doesn’t want me to die alone._

I know that she made this meal because whenever he’d come to visit during breaks, he’d said it was his favorite meal.

I, taking after my mother, start in on the wine.

“So, Sebastian, dear,” he looks up at her, _he was with me long enough to know that tone_ , “how is your family?”

“Ah. My family…” he sips his water, “they’re… well. I haven’t seen them much.”

“The, uh, church has kept you busy, then?”

My mother is about as devout as I am.

“Very. Yes.”

“Ahh. Well… we, uh. Talked a little about your plans, on the phone,” she pours a little more wine, his plans! Crash at Garrett's, seduce Garrett or, barring that, the new guy?, “your… financial situation?”

“Ah. Yes. I, uh, I spent what money I had on the airfare, I’m afraid. One way.”

 _Idiot. Presumptuous, waffle-making, conniving, unintentional decoy-new boyfriend seducing idiot._

“Well… you can stay here with me for as long as you like,” she smiles,

“I’ve got this huge house and no one in it. It’ll be nice to have someone around to do a few repairs…” _This is working out well!_ “You can sleep in Garrett’s old room.”

 _...less well._

“We… got Garrett that big bed, since he’s so tall… it’s very comfortable, isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Mmph.” _I dislike the idea of Sebastian spending anymore time in any of my beds._

“That’ll be lovely. Thank you so much for your hospitality.”

“Oh, of course. Maybe you can stay through Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t that be nice? Oh, I know your Brits don’t celebrate it, but… Garrett cooks an excellent turkey. But, you remember that, don’t you?”

“I do. Yes.” He has the nerve to smile at me, all, _‘Yeah, Garrett, I ate your turkey.’_

 _I never drink wine._

 _Beer? Yes._

 _Vodka? Under duress, apparently._

 _Wine? Never._

 _It goes straight to my head despite the enormity of my body._

There is a very peculiar mark between his collarbone and his throat.

 _I’m not a betting man, my father taught me better than that, but I’d be confident betting money that that mark would match up really, really well to Andy’s mouth if we were to reunite them…_

 _...like Cinderella’s glass slipper._

I’m staring at it. Oh, Andy… never change.

He must not know it’s there. He’s doing nothing to hide it. Nothing.

 _I feel a giggle._

 _I feel it distantly. Abstractly, with a sense of expectation_

 _Like a sneeze._

 _And I have about as much control over it._

“Seb,” I lean forward, struggling to keep my voice concerned, “I think you’ve… you have something, here.”

I touch my own throat.

His eyes bug for a second. Then he glares and tugs at the neck of his shirt.

“What is that?” my mother looks, pulling her readers out of the neck of her blouse.

“It’s… nothing.”

“Was _Bradley_ playing rough today?” I ask, innocently, “He plays rough sometimes. I’ve tried to get him to stop…”

“Uh, yeah.”

“…but he just won’t listen! He loves it too much, I guess.”

“Oh, Sebastian. Why didn’t you tell me?” Before he can stop her, my mother has risen from the table, “A bruise like that needs ice. I.. oh, I don’t have any ice, but I have some frozen peas.”

She’s digging through the freezer.

“I’m fine, Leandra. Really.”

“Did he break the skin?” she asks, coming back over and plopping a bag of frozen peas on his neck.

“No.”

 _Those damn pretty blue eyes are on fire!_

It’s too much fun.

“Did he break the skin, Seb?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? He’s not very careful with his teeth sometimes--”

“Yes, I’m sure--”

“Did he,” my mother says, taking away the peas to look at the mark, “did he _bite_ you, Sebastian?!”

“No… he--”

“If he did, we should disinfect it.”

“Yeah. Don’t know where he’s been, Seb.” I can’t help it, I bark a laugh into my cloth napkin.

“That dog is a beast, Garrett.”

“I know, Mother. A _beast_. Is that true, do you think, Seb?”

“Of course he bloody does!” she loves having someone to fuss over, really, “He’s been mauled. Look at this!”

 _I can’t look at anything else._

Sebastian has gone completely red from his hairline to the neck of his shirt.

“He’s too big, Garrett.”

“Do you agree, Sebastian?” I’m trying really hard to keep it together, “Is he too big?”

“For an apartment that size? Yes,” my mother says decisively before looking at the mark closely, “No, skin’s not broken. Thank god” she chuckles, “Oh… sorry, Sebastian. Thank _goodness_.”

“You can thank Him,” he says, teeth clenched.

“Did you thank Him this afternoon?”

“Garrett!” his teeth are clenched. _Were I to look up ‘Seething’ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Sebastian Vael sitting at my mother’s kitchen table with a bag of frozen peas steaming over his love bite._

“Garrett, stop being weird,” Mother sits back down, “I know we raised you to be godless…” she smiles, over her glass of wine, “but still.”

…

She gets me to stay long enough for pie, but not long enough for Scrabble.

“Where are you going, dear?”

 _I have work, early._

 _I need to feed and cuddle Bradley, The Beast._

 _I’m ready to go home and actually sit on my couch and watch Golden Girls until I fall asleep._

“I’m meeting someone.”

“You… _what_?”

Both she and Sebastian look at me, she looks strangely delighted he looks… _purple_.

“Yeah.”

“A… man?”

“Yes.”

She’s standing between Sebastian and I.

I can tell that she’s dying to ask me a million questions but she can’t because he’s there.

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

“Have fun,” he says, sharply.

“Oh, I will.”

“You boys,” she says, tutting and taking off her readers and tucking them into her blouse, “Come here, kiss me goodbye.”

I kiss her and she pulls me in tight for a hug, “Wear a condom,” she says in my ear.

I laugh, and hug her back.

…

I drive home. I feel... light.

 _Ah, home. Free of Sebastian. Home!_

 _But… I kind of don’t want to go home._

 _I kind of, really, don’t want to be alone._

I park in my normal spot.

Head up the walkway.

There is an envelope taped to my door, with ‘Garrett’ written on the outside in a messy scrawl.

I take it, open it.

And laugh.

There is a note inside:

 

 _‘Dear Garrett,_

 _I’m sorry I fucked the Jesus out of your ex-boyfriend without asking you._

 _It was so incredibly thoughtless of me._

 _My penis… oh, you know how it is._

 _Please accept the enclosed as a token of my undying affection._

 _I would sooner drown us both in waffles and maple syrup before I let anything hurt our friendship._

 _\-- Andy_

 _P.S. – The aforementioned syrup? It would be Canadian. The good shit.’_

 

There is a clumsily made hemp bracelet with blue wooden beads unevenly woven in, inside the envelope.

Standing on the dark porch, and laughing, I put it on and I put his letter in my back pocket.

 _That’s going in the memory box_.

But I don’t go inside.

I stand there with my hand on the knob.

It just seems so… dark inside. Empty.

I take out my phone.

I text, **What are you doing right now?**

I wait.

After a minute, I get a reply, **Nothing. Y?**

 **Mind if I come over?**

Send.

Swallow.

I wait.

Wait.

 _WHAT AM I DOING?_

I wait longer.

Nothing. No reply. Nothing. _ERROR ERROR ERROR._

My phone vibrates like a defibrillation paddle.

I’ve lost my mind.

 **From: Fen  
Body: sure. come over.**

I don’t like to lie to my mother...

...you know how it is.


	24. Chapter 24

His light is on.

 _What am I doing here?!_

I’ve been sitting in my car for about ten minutes, parked on his street, gripping the steering wheel like it’s trying to get away from me.

 _I think I was just… on a Sebastian-mocking, friendship bracelet high. Definitely._

Texting is dangerous. I shouldn’t text unsupervised.

What are my options here?

I could… just, go home. Text him again as say that my car wouldn’t start ( _and I’m too lazy to walk anywhere_ ), or that… I… had food poisoning ( _right, give him the mental image of myself having explosive gastrointestinal distress… that’ll put him right off_ ), or…

Or I could just go _in_.

I stare at the backs of my hands.

 _So not artists’ hands._

 _Too big, too broad, thick fingers..._

 _I remember sitting at the kitchen table with Dad and Carver and comparing our hands. Fingers splayed under the light._

 _Carver and I both got his hands._

 _Workman’s hands, he’d said, because art is work._

 _And for Carver? Well… whatever it is that Carver will do someday, that’ll be work too._

 _Jerking off is work, at the very least._

“Okay,” I say out loud, and let go of the wheel.

I unbuckle.

I open the door, and get out, and stand there for a second.

His light is on.

I walk.

 _One small step for Garrett Hawke, one giant leap for… Garrett Hawke._

…

I call him, tell him I’m outside. He tells me where in the building to find him. The build is set up like a warren, and I get lost, panic briefly, but, quickly right myself. Apartment 930. I knock.

He answers, opening the door without needing to unlock it.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

 _Off to a good start._

There's music playing. He steps back inside, “Do you… want something to drink?”

“Uh…” _walk inside Garrett_ and also, _YES, GARRETT, DRINK_ , “What have you got?”

“Opened up a bottle of wine.”

“That. Yes. That sounds good.”

 _Walk, damn you_.

He runs a hand through his hair (Oh, god, why is it so loud when I swallow?!) and turns, stepping into an absolutely tiny kitchen. It’s a closet with a mini fridge and a half a sink. No stove.

He’s still wearing his old torn sweater from this morning, it looks soft and I want to touch it. It’s more torn in the back and I can… _okay_ … I can see a little of the tattooed-skin of his back.

I exhale, and follow him, _and his back_ , in and feeling momentarily bold, I shut the door behind me.

“How was your dinner?” he asks from the kitchen-closet.

“Fun,” I answer quickly, honestly.

“Yeah?” he sounds doubtful.

“Yeah.”

It’s a small studio. Spartan. I'd say it's mostly spartan.

Of course he's spartan.

That's so _fucking_ hot to a sentimental pack-rat like me.

Hawkes keep clutter.

 _I've got a whole drawer full of torn pants that I can't wear or get rid of because of the memory of what I was doing when I wore them. It's sick. I'm going to be a Hoarder... a tidy Hoarder, but, still destined to have a garage full of dead rats all the same. They'll just be... organized._

 _Okay, Brain. Refocus._

 _I'm actually here._

His work desk is one of those low Japanese tables. There’s a bookshelf, with very few books and a lot of camera equipment. _His… bed_. Not on a frame, just there, not made but the cover’s pulled up, on the ground in the corner with a crate beside it holding a half full/half empty glass of water and a little lamp.

There are, I realize, a lot of _skeletons_ in here.

Varying sizes, and propped up or lying down all over the place.

A collection of skeletons.

“ _Dia de los Muertos_ ,” he says _in Spanish_ , stepping up next to me with a glass of red wine in his hand, “I started collecting them a few years ago. They’re a bitch to move without breaking them… especially that one,” he points at a skeleton sitting against the wall that’s got to be about six-feet tall.

 _Taller than him, at any rate._

I take the wine from him, my big fat fingers brushing his in the hand-off, “Paper mâché?”

“Yeah.”

I step over to the big one, and sip, oh, god… so much wine tonight. “I made a sugar skull, once. A long time ago. At art camp.” His joints are string, connecting long skinny bones to each other, and to the torso, tied into little loops, painted hands limp at his sides.

 _It’s a little macbre. But… cheerfully macabre._

I have no idea what Fen is, ethnically. “Are you…” _I’m doing this?_ “Mexican?”

He shrugs, looking mildly amused at the question… “I’m a mutt.”

“Yeah, me too,” _a pasty mostly-Irish mutt_.

And now… I don’t know what to do.

I’m crouched on the ground, eye to black-painted eye-socket eye with the skeleton. And Fen’s standing behind me. And…

 _Skeleton, what do I do?_

He’s got nothing.

Or, if he does, he’s being damn withholding.

 _Damn you._

“I, uh…” he sounds awkward too, “Sorry I don’t really have anywhere to sit.”

“Oh. That’s okay. I’ll… sit. Wherever. I don’t mind.”

 _I stop short of telling him about how I fell off the monkey-bars performing a stunt I was dared into when I was a kid and broke my tailbone and now when I sit on the ground for a long time my ass and legs both go to sleep. He… he doesn’t need to know about that._

 _As cool as that story is..._

I look up at him.

In addition to the tattoos on his chin, there is a large white arch of a scar there that I’ve never noticed.

 _Who are you?_

“I… I’m…”

 _Oh, fuck._

He looks away from me, shaking his head.

 _I said that out loud!?_

“That’s a big question, isn’t it?”

 _The thin but stubborn membrane between my idiot brain and my idiot mouth has finally disintegrated._

I stand up, leaving my stomach and my heart on the ground and feeling suddenly dizzy without them,

“No! I. I mean… yeah. That’s a big question,” asked by a big, membraneless idiot, “I… I…”

 _Buh._

He sips his wine, the lenses of his glasses reflecting the glow from his computer. He’s got an editing program open; a picture of Leliana from _Quiver – An Evening_.

“Who are you?” he asks, quietly, eyes darting back to me.

…

We’re working our way through a second bottle of wine.

It’s tasty.

Why don’t I drink wine?

Oh, yeah, because it gets me _drunk_.

I’m sitting on the floor. My ass is totally asleep and my legs are starting to go. The rug under me has done nothing to help that. What’s the point of rugs, anyway? Really?

My tingling legs are stretched out in front of me…

 _Christ, they’re long. At least I’m proportional. Long legs, long torso. Carver’s tall too, but he’s all legs with a stumpy normal-person sized torso. At least I have that going for me._

I look past my feet.

Fen’s sitting across the room on the ground in front of the computer, one leg bent, scrolling through his music collection and smoking.

I watched him roll that cigarette and it was like watching some kind of ceremonial ritual. One that I wasn’t cool enough to see in person.

And the things he’s doing with smoke. Who does that?! He’s like Gandalf--

 _Jesus Christ, Garrett, really?_

He settles on a song and turns back to me.

“Okay… so… we got as far as Kirkwall.”

I’ve been telling him my story.

Most of it.

I’ve actually included a few details I usually leave out, and left out a few that normally include.

It feels like a new story.

And, also, as long as my idiot mouth is blathering on… I don’t have the energy left to be nervous.

And the longer I’m quiet?

Oh, the nervous is definitely still there. Lying in wait for me to shut up for long enough… then it’ll jump out like a little anxiety-hobgoblin.

Yes.

Anxiety-Hobgoblin.

 _I’m in his apartment drinking his wine and telling him about my lame little life… WHATISHAPPENING--_

“Yeah…” I exhale, folding my hands, “Mom and the kids relocated here. And… I came back. After graduation.”

“To work at Bianca’s?”

“No. Well, no. Not originally,” I rest the back of my head against the wall, “I came back to paint.” _And to take care of them_. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Ahh,” he exhales smoke through his nose _which should not be attractive but it totally fucking is_ , “my sister.”

“Oh, that’s right. The one that,” rather than just say ’ _stabbed you with a pair of scissors_ ,’ I chose to make a Psycho-shower scene stabbing motion with my right hand.

He nods his head, “Yeah. That one.”

“What about your parents?”

I see him go a little rigid.

I _hate_ seeing it happen. He rolls his shoulder, and I wish I could take it back.

 _I just divulged twenty-some odd years of life story… or, parts thereof._

Still… I feel bad. I feel… _cold_.

It’s like the exact opposite of the unadulterated elation I’d felt at dinner making Seb squirm.

“We were in and out of foster homes,” he says, squinting a little, “the system.” he shrugs. End of sentence.

“You didn’t know them?”

He shakes his head, _No_.

My legs are asleep.

“But you were together?”

“For a while. Yeah.”

I try jiggling my legs a little. No good.

 _Oh well_.

“Why coffee?” he asks, pouring himself more wine.

I smile and close my eyes.

I need to close my eyes to talk about coffee.

“It’s my one true love.” I’m _wistful_ about coffee.

I hear him chuckle, “Why?”

“Because it’s hot. It’s… a ritual. Because no matter where you go, you can find a cup of coffee. It might be rancid or it might be wonderful, but it’s always there. Because… it can be anything from a Styrofoam cup of scalding, bitter brown-water in a hospital or a piece of art, something made for you, with attention and... I think… I like that coffee is versatile. It _can_ be whatever you need it to be, whenever. And sometimes it’s _not_ what you need it to be… but that’s the point, too--”

 _Click._

I open my eyes.

He lowers the camera and looks at me. Really looks.

“Is this okay?” it’s a soft question. I could say no. He gives me that.

My heart is racing. Fast.

“I…”

I nod.

 _I didn’t shave._

 _I haven’t showered._

 _I’m gross and shiny._

I reach up to address my hair which is, unsurprisingly, greasy and getting long enough to curl at the ends.

I am not what you might call photo-ready.

But… I can’t run away.

Literally.

I can’t. My feet are numb.

He’s gone, behind the camera again, just a voice, “What else about coffee?”

“What?” _God… that voice_.

“Tell me more about coffee.”

I close my eyes.

“It’s…” I breathe deep, hold it, let it go, “it’s all that stuff. But, it’s also my Dad.”

 _Click_.

Breathe.

“He…” I haven’t thought about this for years, “before the twins, we went to Rome. And Florence. Just the three of us. My mother loves Florence. I was seven.”

 _Click_.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“My dad loved coffee. He always drank it, every day. I wanted to… but he wouldn’t let me. He said it would stunt my growth,” I laugh, “Now I think maybe a little stunting wouldn’t have hurt.”

He laughs.

 _Click_.

“My mom went to a museum. My dad took me up to the Piazzale Michelangelo. He loved it. I was bored as fuck. Again. _Seven_ , right?”

 _Click_.

“But after, when we came back down, he took me to a café and we sat and he left me have coffee. My own. I just felt like… I was seven, but I felt like a grown up. I thought it was horrible! But I drank all of it. It took me about an hour to choke it down.”

 _Click._

“I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that grown up since then.”

 _Click._

I open my eyes, cringing, “I look awful!”

“No. You don’t.”

 _Click._

It suddenly feels like an x-ray.

Like an MRI.

It hurts, in a weird way, like an ache… and strong. Like, somehow the unpleasant metaphorically-metal bits inside of me are getting pulled out.

I feel like he can see all my organs. My bones.

I glance, with commiseration, at the six-foot skeleton, sitting dumbly yet sardonically near the bookshelf.

 _Need to deflect._

“You traveled much?”

 _Click._

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

He doesn’t lower the camera, but I see his mouth twitch, “Everywhere.”

“Mexico?”

“Yes.”

 _Click._

“…where else?”

“Reykjavik. Amsterdam. Munich. St. Petersburg.”

 _Click._

“Wow.”

 _Click._

He pauses, lowers the camera.

“Just by yourself?”

He stands up.

“Yeah.”

He’s looking at the screen, hair falling over his eyes.

“Move over there. The light’s better.” Businesslike.

“Ahh.”

 _Problem._

He looks at me when I don’t move, “What?”

“I…” I bite my lip, “I _can’t_.”

“You can’t move over there? Just by the lamp.”

 _This is ridiculous_. “My… feet are asleep.”

He looks at me, face scrunched, and I start laughing.

 _Oh, god. Not this again._

“Asleep?”

“Yeah. Pins and needles. They… hurt.”

He doesn’t move for a minute, just stares at me, slumped and laughing.

Then he sets down the camera and comes over, “Both of them?”

“Yeah. My, my tailbone--”

He kneels next to me, dark eyebrows quirked, and asks dryly, “Do you want me to help you up?”

“Yes. But…” I stop laughing, seized by something like panic at his proximity, “it’s… not just my feet.”

“What?”

“It’s my legs, too.”

“Oh..”

 _I’m a freak._

“Do you have… bad circulation?”

“Not especially. But, uh, there’s a lot of me to pump blood into,” I say, quickly, without thinking, _fuck_ , “My feet are a long way from my heart.”

“Oh… okay,” he’s holding back a smile, politely, “So… how do we proceed?”

“Ha. Um… well, it’s going to hurt, but… I just need to stand up.”

“Will you fall?”

“Oh, god, I _hope_ not!”

“Okay, I’m going to…” he crouches and kind of wedges himself under my right arm.

 _Oh, fuck, what is my life?_

He grabs my wrist with his left hand, pulling my arm across his chest, for leverage, “I’m just going to stand up, okay?”

I’m laughing, “Okay.”

“Lean on me.”

“I’m heavy.”

I feel him shrug, “I’m strong.”

 _This._

 _What is this?_

He pulls me up.

“ _Ahhh!!!_ ”

Everything from the waist down that was numb is now…

 _FUCK_.

Like bees stinging from the inside.

“Ahh! _Ah!_ ”

He _is_ strong though.

And laughing.

I get my feet underneath myself, kind of, feeling very much like the Scarecrow.

 _Does that make him Dorothy?_

“Oh, fuck! Ah! Aha!”

Blood’s flowing back in, but it hurts like a stinging, tickling bitch.

I close my eyes.

I have left hand on the wall for support, and the other is still held, by him, against his chest and over his heart.

 _I can feel his heart._

“It’s…” my voice sounds choked, phlegmy, “It’s a nerve thing. I… fell on my ass and broke my, ah," my knees buckle a little, "tailbone.”

 _Heartbeat._

“…when I sit on a hard surface for too long… this happens.”

“You could have sat on my bed.”

 _Heartbeat. Bed._

My legs don’t entirely exist yet.

And I feel like his heart is in my hand.

And, my head, my head is heavy.

 _No._

My head is pressed against his.

“I didn’t think…” I know that blood is flowing back into my legs, but I feel like it’s all stopped in my gut.

 _I could kiss him. It would be easy. His mouth is open. Wine and smoke and Fen and everything that my over-worked artist-heart could want._

Dark eyelashes. Green eyes.

 _Heartbeat._

 _Maybe this is actually sexy._

 _Like… to him, too._

 _Not just to me… because apparently, lately, everything is sexy to me._

I hardly feel the pins and needles now.

“Garrett.”

“Yeah?”

“I…” he looks down, and I pull my head back.

His heart is beating about as hard as I think mine is.

“I need you to…” he clears his throat, “know.”

“Know what?”

“What I am.”

“What you--”

“What I _was_.”

 _Well, shit_. I can tell he doesn't want to talk. He really doesn't. He's... doing it though.

Kind of.

Not right now. We're both quiet for a long time.

“I, um, need to walk.”

He nods, and starts helping me lurch around the studio.

We’re waking in a hobbled circle now, and I’m getting a little steadier.

“Okay.”

The blood that I think stayed in my gut has turned to a solid, petrified rock.

“I was…” he adjusts his grip on me, “the, uh, relationship that I was in.”

“With the tattoo guy?”

“Yeah. With him,” he pauses, then says very quietly, “he was an artist, too.” Well, fuck. “But… _different_. He was… nothing like you.”

“Like, an installation artist?”

“No. Just… different.”

I _could_ stand on my own feet now.

But I don’t.

I swallow, “Okay.”

 _He still hasn’t really told me anything._

 _Maybe he can’t._

 _Maybe he just… won’t._

“Can you stand?”

I don’t want to say yes.

“Yeah,” he pulls away slowly, “thanks.”

"You can sit on the bed. If you want."

"I'm... good. Standing. I'll keep gravity on my side for a little bit."

My legs still feel a little unreal, like they've just regrown.

"I'm... bad at this," he offers, folding his arms in front of his chest, "at... talking. I, uh, I traveled. For a long time. After that relationship ended, I didn't know who I was. It was like... anything I'd ever been before was just... gone. And I couldn't get it back."

"Travel's good, for that. I've heard. I mean..." shut up, Garrett, "I've... heard. Seen movies."

 _Do not say 'Eat. Pray. Love.'_

"Yeah. Maybe it helped. Anyway." Again. End of sentence. End of story.

This has been a long day. I'm punchy. I'm tired. I've never, ever laughed so much in my life in such a short amount of time... my throat is sore.

And I feel raw.

And kind of stripped.

 _And while I still have my Anxiety-Hobgoblin, this other thing that's been there, something Sebastian-shaped, is gone._

"Did you eat a puffin in Iceland?"

 _Yes. That's what I go with. Finally telling me something real about himself?_

 _The obvious response is to ask him if he's eaten a puffin._

He laughs, "Yeah. Several."

"They're so cute. I don't know if I could do it."

I stay for another hour or so, and he takes my picture while I stand over there, where the light's a little better.

I even keep my eyes open for most of it.


	25. Chapter 25

In my life, I’ve owned a lot of easels.

The attic at the old house was full of them, ones that we had either outgrown or ones that had broken...

Again, Hawkes are genetically coded to be pack-rats.

Whether or not our bee allergy is entirely hereditary or not, genetic fate or chance, is debatable. Either way, Carver, Bethany and I have always had an EpiPen somewhere on our persons and can’t-slash-won’t throw things out.

But the thing is, I never use them.

Neither the EpiPen nor the easels.

( _Well, I would use the EpiPen if I had to…_ )

After work, I came home, washed a sinkload of dishes and then settled in on the ground, as is my way, with a fresh canvas propped against the living room wall and a ratty old comforter I’ve used as a drop cloth for years under everything.

Well loved brushes.

 _And green paint under my nails._

 _Feels damn good._

Bradley is dozing and farting happy on the patio. I’ve got the windows open for ventilation and because, while not as good as October, November smells so damn nice.

My legs going to sleep forces me to get up and step back and look at the thing, often, which is good. I need to do that and it’s easy to forget to step back and look sometimes.

I’ve spent a lot of my life like this, curled up like a grotesque on a ledge and covered in paint spatter.

What’s different about today, though, is that I’m not _alone_ painting.

Isabela and Andy are tangled together and stretched out on my couch under a blanket watching Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

They’d migrated to my couch from upstairs and at first I felt like my carefully maintained leave-me-alone-while-I’m-painting-bubble had been unceremoniously popped… but now? It’s kind of nice having them there. We’re not talking or anything. It’s just… nice. Social. Easy social.

“Ooh.”

I look over my shoulder at the sound of her voice. Er, her moan.

He’s rolling her off of himself and trying to extricate himself from the blanket.

“Guys…” I rub my nose, “not when I’m in the room…”

“Unclench. She was lying on my phone,” Andy smirks and rolls his eyes at me, standing and pulling his vibrating phone out of his front pocket. He frowns.

“Hello.”

He walks out of the room.

Isabela grabs the remote and pauses the VHS ( _I refuse to upgrade any of my Monty Python collection. Not one to be seduced by HD or special features, there’s something comforting about watching a VHS that’s older than I am_ ).

“That’s not a good face,” she whispers, getting up, wrapped in the blanket ( _okay, fine, it’s a Slanket – I like it_ ) and sitting next to me on the ground.

“Huh?”

“That’s his Cassandra face.”

“Cassandra?”

“Publisher.”

“Ah…” _this green… I’m being too picky about it, but it’s just not working_ , “They’re still at war then?”

“Brutal war, yeah,” she presses the tip of her index finger into a glob of an abandoned green experiment on my palette, “I think they’re about a day or two away from mustard gassing each other.”

She finger-paints a dick on my palette.

“Trench warfare?” I swat her hand away and start contributing a crudely drawn male body to her dick, “How old-school of them.”

She watches me and then butts her head against my arm, “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’re going to enter, right?”

“Ugh,” I thought she’d drop it, “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You have to, kitten. You’re so fucking good I can’t stand it sometimes.”

The Bay-Area Barista Competition.

Varric slid the flyer for it across the counter at me this morning and Isabela had spent the rest of the workday unsubtly bringing it up.

“There’s a cash prize, Garrett. You love cash prizes!”

“Do I?”

“Of course you do. Who doesn’t?” she adds while smudging a truly massive quantity of pubic hair to our artistic collaboration, “It’s perfect. You’ll get dressed up, look adorable, make some snooty judges espresso and cappuccinos and win cash prizes and notoriety. Regional fame and modest fortune! Varric wouldn’t be pushing it if he didn’t think you were fabulous.”

It’d be good for Bianca’s if I did well; at least within the coffee scene, it’s definitely _kind of_ a big deal.

“You make such pretty coffee, kitten.”

I’d gotten more practice lately at making pretty coffee.

Every Sunday.

I made a dragon in his foam this last weekend. A dragon. Okay, I was pretty proud of that. I’ll admit it… felt like a badass.

“I’ll think about it.”

Sure I’d think about it.

But there were freaking giants in the scene that dominated that competition every year.

“Fuck!”

Both our heads snap toward the kitchen.

Andy’s generally really unflappable. I haven’t ever really seen him… flapped.

He’s standing in the archway between rooms looking equal parts deject and pissed.

“What was it this time, Tiger?”

“She said it was bullshit. ‘ _Bullshit!_ ’”

“…is it?”

It’s a gamble.

But he smiles tightly at me, “Of course it is.”

He has lately taken to describing _Justice & Vengeance_ as an albatross around his neck. A profitable albatross, but still…

“She said that no one buys those books to read a philosophical manifesto. They want plot. And plot twists. Explosions and betrayal. Etcetera, etcetera…” he sighs, “I’m sick of writing that... _bullshit_.”

He comes forward, into the room, and drops to his knees before lying belly down on the floor with his head on her leg.

“I’m creatively frustrated,” his voice is muffled by her lap. “I want to go out.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere fun.”

“It’s Tuesday?”

They both look at me.

“I’ve got an idea.”

...

I’m confident that I made the right call.

Taco Tuesday Karaoke at The Hanged Man is about as divey as you can get in Kirkwall.

But freely flowing tequila and greasy yet delicious tacos? It’s worth the chanced exposure to a little Hepatitis.

I push the door open, my ears ringing a little. Holding my phone in my hand, I let the door close behind me, muffling Andy’s _surprisingly_ sincere rendition of Katy Perry’s _E.T._.

He really took to it.

Tequila helped.

He's been trying to get Merrill on stage for about forty-five minutes. It's actually really sweet.

I answer my phone, plugging my other ear with a finger.

“Hey, Little Sister!”

“Big Brother! Is this a bad time?”

“No. I’m out, but it--”

“You’re _out?_ ” she gasps, dramatically, “At night?!”

“Yes. I am,” _so sassy, this sister of mine_ , “Like an actual young person.”

“Are you getting blown in a bar right now? Please, _please_ tell me that you are.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now.”

“Thank god!”

It’s actually quite chilly out here, close to the water as The Hanged Man is, and I shiver, “Ooh. Ohh, yeah.” I offer, dryly, and she laughs, cackling happily on the other end of the line, “Anyway, what’s up?”

“Are you so excited to see me in a week? It’s okay, you can admit that you are.”

I am, actually.

As much as I’m maybe not looking forward to sharing my Hawke Family Thanksgiving with Sebastian ( _there’s no way around it… Mother has officially taken him in under her wing. I get daily emails about his well-being and activities… like a tiger or an Ethiopian child I’ve symbolically adopted for a dollar a day. I feel like she’s barely holding back from attaching photographs of him that she'd want me to put on the fridge._ ) I am genuinely excited to see Bethany, and Carver.

Add to that the fact the Andy and Isabela have also RSVP’d and… well…

“I am. Yeah!”

“I, um…” she’s smiling, I can hear it, “I’m bringing someone with me.”

“Whaa?” Defensive Older Brother Mode Engaged. “Not the _I-Love-You_ , guy!”

“Not. God, no. Blech. No… someone else. He’s flying back with me… so… um, anyway… you can pick him up too, right?”

Both Bethany and Carver were flying in about two hours apart. I was picking them

“I, uh… yeah. I have room. I can… yeah. Bethy, is he your _boyfriend_?”

I’m teasing, but I really do want to know.

“No! Yes. I don’t know… don’t tell Mom. Hey, what about you?”

 _I made a dragon in his foam. We’ve reached that level._

 _Relationship Threat Level Dragon Foam._

“We’ve hung out.”

“Since Halloween?”

“Yes.”

“Good! Ugh… I still can’t believe you let him go.”

“What was I supposed to do? Tie him down?”

 _Oh, god, no… DON’TTHINKABOUTIT._

“How’s The Lodger?”

“Mom loves him.”

“She always has.”

“I know.”

“You _never_ told her about everything he did?”

“No.”

“Oh, Gare-Bear…”

The sound from inside gets unmuffled as the door opens. I hear a few strains of a strangled ‘I Will Survive.’ Andy’s drunk-head pops out, “Hey! Get in here!”

“Oh, my god, Garrett, is that him?” Bethany squeaks.

I laugh, “No.”

“Who’re you talking to?” he smiles like a cartoon fox and slinks out toward me.

“My sister.”

“Oh, really?” he leans in close to my mouth and says into the phone, “Hi, sister.”

“Who’s your drunk friend, Gare-Bear?”

“His name is Andy,” I say as he grabs a handful of the neck on my shirt and starts dragging me back to the door, “I think I have to go, Bethy.”

“Have fun, Big Brother!”

I laugh and hang up.

And then I spend the next five minutes making a complete fool out of myself in front of a bar full of strangers with Andy being the Sonny to my Cher.

...

My phone rings.

I wake up, fast.

It’s late.

It’s really late.

Once you get older than twenty-five, a phone ringing late at night is never a good sign.

Never.

I feel that cold wash of panic clear sleep out of my head and I answer without looking at the name.

“H-Hello? What’s… is’t okay?”

The line is quiet.

“Oh, fuck! I… sorry, I didn’t…” Fen. I sit up, Bradley perking up next to me, “I didn’t realize how late it was.”

My heart is hammering, “It’s, uh… fine. What’s…”

“Can you get to a window?”

Words are stunned out of me, and I kind of grunt the affirmative.

My bed is under the window, and I lay back, looking up and out. The sky is still mostly navy.

A hot yellow light darts across the sky. And another. And another.

 _A meteor shower._

"Wow."

“Sorry… I just,” he laughs quietly, and I hear smoke in it, “I can’t believe I called you…” _Sleep? Forget sleep. I’m totally and completely awake._ “…so late.”

“No. It’s fine. I’m glad,” I am, I’m so dizzily, _fucking_ glad, “It’s really neat.” His voice is in my ear and I’m… I’m most definitely in bed, and there’s something about that that is completely overwhelming.

 _And, oh my god, meteor showers are so fucking neat._

 _So neat._

 _And his voice?_

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. I thought you’d…”

He doesn’t finish that sentence.

We stay on the line, not talking, and just watch.

My free hand is spread on my stomach, and I try to level out my breathing.

 _Oh, god, can he hear me breathing? Am I panting into the phone? Am that guy?_

“What…” I break the silence, “what are you doing up this late?”

“Editing.”

“Oh.”

“I got caught up… again, yeah… I had no idea how late it is. I just, saw that and…”

 _Called me._

“I thought someone had died!” I laugh, _like a crazy person._

“Sorry…” I hear him cringe, “I don’t need very much sleep. I forget that other people… do.”

“I don’t need that much,” _That’s a lie, Garrett Hawke. You’re a total curmudgeon unless you get at least nine hours of sleep_ , “But… you know, some.”

“Sorry.”

“I really don’t care! I'm glad you did.”

“Uh… good.”

“How was your day?”

 _I’ve crossed that line._

“It was good. Busy. I’m shooting a wedding this weekend.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll… be out of town for a few days.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s down south.”

“How long will you be gone?”

 _…I have no right to ask._

“A… a few days.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Yeah… I um… I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. Taking the train.”

We’re quiet.

Really quiet.

I want to ask him to hang out tomorrow night.

I want to ask him to come over.

 _A really completely insane part of me, one that’s very painfully awake, wants to ask him to come over now._

 _I want him here, with me._

 _I want him in my bed._

 _I could just say it. Right?_

 _I could say, ‘Fen… there’s no way I’m falling asleep again tonight. Do you want to come over?’_

 _No…_

 _‘…please come over?’_

 _Or is that needy? I guess it’d depend on how I’d say it._

 _How would Andy say it?_

 _‘…come over, please.’_

 _I could._

 _And he could be here._

 _Oh, god, I want that._

 _I could do that and be happy._

 _Assuming he'd say yes._

 _And assuming against odds that he'd, you know, get into my bed._

 _Damn you odds._

Anyway, I could ask.

But instead I hear myself say…

“Trains are great.”

 _No! I shake my head._

“Hmm.”

And that’s enough.

That _‘Hmm’_.

I’m in a barrel and I go over the falls.

“Come over.” _Oh, jesus._ “Tomorrow.” _Oh, fuck._ “I’ll… what… I’ll make dinner.”

“…sure. Yeah. What time?”

 _REALLY?_

“Seven?”

“That’s early.”

“Uh… seven-thirty?”

He laughs, “Okay.”

I give him my address, mumble something about opening at work and we hang up.

Because I will only manage to screw this up more the longer we talk and I, for once am going to end on a high note.

And then I proceed to lay there until I have to get up for work and grin stupidly up at the ceiling while Bradley enthusiastically licks his wang next to me.


	26. Chapter 26

So, this had all seemed like a really great idea between 4:07 am and 9:04 am.

A victory.

I was a master of my own destiny.

I was capable of change and growth and I was not, in any way shape or form the quiet lanky hairy kid who had pined silently for the cute green-eyed soccer player in high school and never had a boyfriend and consoled himself with frequent re-readings of a very dog-eared copy of Lord of the Rings.

No.

No longer!

I was a new Garrett who was fully capable of inviting the cute green-eyed photographer over for a casual dinner at home.

I was a new man for just under five hours. It was great.

But when he walked in?

 _What have I done?_

I feel like I’m not wearing my good jeans, but instead am back in my school issued gym-shorts which were always, ALWAYS, way too short.

 _I have so much more leg than everyone else!_

He’s wearing a grey sweater.

Not black.

Grey.

And tight.

And his camera is around his neck.

And his sleeves are pushed up and--

 _I can’t do it._

 _Why did I think I could?_

 _What madness was it, exactly, that made me do it?_

 _Maybe I wasn’t actually totally awake. Maybe I was sleep talking._

He shakes hair out of his eyes. “Hey.”

“H-hey.”

I’m standing there with his coffee in my hand, ready to go, ready to…

“You okay?”

No.

 _I am a giant deer in the middle of the road. But… a sentient deer. One well aware of the fact that a smarter, more socially adept deer would just get out of the ROAD._

I see Merrill out of the corner of my eye, re-stocking bags of the holiday flavored whole bean.

“Yeah…” I swallow, and shake my head, “Just got… umm… kind of dizzy for a second.”

He looks worried.

And _that’s_ crazy.

I feel sweaty. The back of my neck feels tight.

 _What is wrong with me?!_

I must look much worse than I feel because he steps closer to the counter and says quietly, “Do you need to sit down?”

I hand him his coffee, because I feel like my wrist is shaking.

“Yeah… maybe.”

I am aware of Andy, watching over the edge of his Mac completely still.

Fen sets the coffee on the counter in front of himself.

“Sit down, Garrett.”

I nod, and come around the counter.

There’s a chair. At a table. Good old chair. _My old friend_.

I sit down.

And a second later he sits down across from me, handing me a cup of water.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

 _I’m just a coward._

“You okay, Garrett?” Merrill’s standing next to me, twisting a towel between her hands.

The door opens and a vaguely familiar young guy comes in, chatting happily with Varric.

“Oh!” Merrill touches my arm, “I’ve got it. Don’t worry, Garrett!”

She darts over to the counter, Varric greeting her cheerfully after looking at me with a quizzical little grimace.

“Drink that,” Fen says quietly.

 _This is embarrassing. Really. It’s just getting worse._

 _But sitting down is good._

 _And… at the very least, he’s sitting down with me._

 _That’d be great!_

 _Under other circumstances._

I drink my water, avoiding looking at him.

Embarrassing.

 _Maybe I should lie and say I’m sick._

 _Maybe there’s some scrap of normality in that._

“You feeling okay, Hawke?”

I look up at Varric, who has come over, setting Fen’s abandoned coffee in front of him.

“Yeah… just… I think… my blood sugar, or something.”

 _Blood sugar! Yes. Brilliant! That’s a real thing!_

Varric breaks off a piece of the coffee cake he’s holding and puts it in my hand, “Eat that. You’ll feel better.”

I want to laugh.

And cry.

And crawl into a corner.

 _But it is really good coffee cake._

I eat it.

“Hey, those shots look great, by the way.”

I look up. Varric has turned his attention to Fen who has at some point taken his camera off and set in on the table between us.

“Glad you like them,” he says.

“You’ve got a great eye,” Varric glances at me quickly, and then says, “I’ve been thinking about showing art in the shop. Help out local artists, you know. Al does it,” he gestures over his shoulder at Al, or, Alistair of the Bookstore, who is talking to Andy (who, while politely engaged in conversation, does keep glancing furtively at me with a _WTF_ kind of glare), “so, if you’d be interested, I’d love to have you be the first.”

“That’s be… great. Yeah,” Fen nods, “Thanks.”

“Fantastic. We can hammer out the details some other time,” Varric looks at me, “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah. I feel better.”

“Maybe go sit outside? Get some fresh air…” he smiles.

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

He leaves after chatting with Merrill about the whole bean for a few minutes, taking Alistair with him.

“You want to sit outside?” Fen’s hands are folded on the table.

 _Why is he doing this?_

 _I’m pathetic._

“Yeah.”

He stands up, slips his camera back on, and waits for me with his coffee in his hand.

I stand up slowly and lumbering, feeling like a depressed sloth, lead the way outside to the bench.

I sit down, and after a second of visible hemming and hawing, he sits down lightly next to me.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I keep…” I laugh, “so, you’ve seen me have a panic attack, you’ve seen me paralyzed from the waist down, and now… blood sugar.”

He sips his coffee.

“I’m a mess.”

“Eh,” he smirks, “We’re all messes.”

I lean forward, my elbows digging into my thighs.

 _These are my good jeans._

 _Not gym shorts._

“Do you…” he doesn’t look at me, “want to… I mean, tonight. If you don’t feel great…”

“No! I’m… fine! I’m fine. I… want to.”

He nods, “Okay. I just, if you felt shitty.”

“No. No… it’s… I’ll be fine. I…” I push my hair back, “What do you eat?”

“Anything.”

“Like…?”

“I’m not picky.”

He’s really quiet.

Like, I can hardly hear him over the sound of meandering downtown traffic.

“Should I bring anything?”

“You don’t have to.”

He looks at me, “Wine?”

 _God, yes._

“Yes.”

He nods, “All right.”

I see the top of Merrill’s head as she peeks through the little round port-hole window in the back door, then disappears fast.

I laugh.

“Your friends really care about you a lot,” he says softly, the corner of his mouth twitches.

 _He saw her too._

...

I made pizza from scratch.

He brought wine.

And weed.

Oh, weed.

I haven’t smoked in a long time. There was a time when I was smoking a lot. I smoked through college, of course, but it was after I came home that it became an everyday kind of thing.

Until Mother asked to smoke with me one afternoon.

While it had been a strangely pleasant bonding experience, it had also been a kind of, _‘What’s happening to your life right now, Garrett?’_ kind of moment.

Like anything pleasurable that you haven’t done for a while, it feels _incredible_. Familiar and friendly and…

I remember why I liked it so much.

My brain is so fucking peaceful. Quiet.

 _All’s quiet on the brain front_.

I’m stretched out on the couch ( _bought specifically because it was long enough for me to do just this without propping my feet up on the arm_ ) and he’s sitting cross legged in my big leather chair ( _which was my Dad’s before it was mine_ ).

“Okay, so…” I smile, “Do you like weddings?”

He’s touching the paper of my Ikea lamp, “Sometimes. I’ve only done a few. This is torn.”

I look at the lamp, “It is?”

He pokes his finger into a hole about an inch long.

“Well dammit.”

“Do you like weddings?” he asks, reaching for his glass on wine on the coffee table.

“Generally yes. But I’m not big on churches.”

“Oh, no?”

I shake my head, “Not even a little. I’m always a little surprised that I don’t spontaneously burst into flames when I walk into one,” I roll my head and look at him, “Really. You’re smiling but I’m totally serious. I hold my breath for a second every time and brace for… flames.”

He chuckles, his head back against the chair.

I watch his throat.

 _I want to taste it._

His eyes are closed.

“I like your place,” he says, voice rougher than usual.

“Thanks. Rent’s a little high, but, I like it.”

“You get a lot of light in here in the day?”

“Yeah. I work in here.”

 _I have been painting. Every day after work. It’s felt really good._

“Hmm.”

I glance over at the work-in-progress that’s propped against the wall.

Merrill and Andy had come over briefly to help me clean ( _not that I needed that much help… the place was pretty clean and I suspected they were here as a watch to make sure I didn’t back out of it_ ).

Merrill picked out the shirt I’m wearing.

Andy told me to leave the painting clutter out.

Apparently it’s sexy.

I took his word for it.

“It’s an old building?”

“Very. I like that about it.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I had a ghost once but it was just some bad piping,” I curl up and reach for the bottle of wine and my glass, “You want more?”

He opens his eyes and nods, unfolding to hand his glass to me.

Comfortably high and a little buzzed, I feel _good_.

I’m _happy_.

And he's… sitting there and looking warm and comfortable and…

“I’m going to have to find another coffee place,” he says calmly, taking his glass from me.

“What?”

 _WHAT?_

“On the trip…” he says.

“Oh! Yeah. Coffee! Are you addicted now?”

“Definitely.”

“I try to tell myself that I could stop anytime I want… but I don’t want to, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“I could recommend some places.”

“Other dealers to get a fix from?”

“Ha. Yeah. Wait… does that make me… am I a _dealer_?”

He shrugs, and smiles and, relaxed though I might be, the way that his lips spread around that smile… my heart thuds out of rhythm.

I blink, fast, and look down at the couch cushion.

“I’d trust your opinion,” he says quietly.

“I’ll make an annotated list for you,” I say, looking up at him, “I’ll have it ready with footnotes tomorrow morning.”

“I’m leaving early,” he says, holding my eye contact.

“How early?”

“Train leaves at eight.”

“Oh.”

 _So… I won’t see you?_

“I’m…” my mouth is so dry, “I’m excited that you’re, that your stuff’s going to be in Bianca’s. I’ve thought Varric should be doing that for a long time…”

“Show art?”

“Yeah. But I never brought it up because I thought it’d sound like I was… angling. For personal gain.”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” he’s not smiling.

“Maybe. I’m not… good at that though,” I cringe, “Which maybe explains why I haven’t sold anything in about two years.”

“You’re good. I think,” he twists the base of his glass on his thigh, “the piece by your front door? That’s…” he drinks, “beautiful.”

 _Without meaning to, I make a weird groany squeak._

I cough to cover it.

“Thanks.”

“Garrett?”

“Yeah?”

“You…” he’s gripping the arm of the chair, and his tone catches me off guard. It’s… _different_. He swallows, “You photograph really well.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. The other night… I, um…” he smiles, “got some really good shots.”

“Yeah?”

He nods.

When he looks at me, I don’t know…

There’s something _there_.

And I’m up.

 _My brain can’t catch up to my body_.

I’m not on the couch.

 _I don’t want it to catch up. I don’t want it to tell me to stop_.

I’m over the chair, with a glass of wine that isn’t mine in my hand.

I’m…

I move his wine.

And… I’m over him. Hands braced on the impossibly familiar arms of the chair.

His face is turned up at me, and open, and… like he expected me to do this.

 _Well, I’m glad one of us saw this coming at least._

He lets his head fall back.

Mouth open slightly.

And I feel his breath on my throat.

“Is this…” I don’t sound like myself, but I don’t know who I sound like, “is this okay?”

“I want it to be.”

It’s an honest answer.

“ _But…_ ”

“I’m not… I’m not an easy person to be with, Garrett.”

“I think you are.”

He smiles sadly and looks at my mouth.

He shifts, brushing his thumb across my bottom lip.

I groan.

And I can barely hear past the sound of it and the blood in my ears.

But I _feel_ him groan too.

“I think you… I think you wouldn’t feel that way if you knew--”

“What?” I open my eyes, “just… tell me.”

 _Under normal circumstance… uninebriated circumstances… I wouldn’t ask._

But I feel him, and leather under my fingers, and wine and…

 _I feel that bastard brain start to catch up, snatching at my ankles as it tries to pull me back from the edge of… whatever cliff I’m so stupidly intent on dangling over right now._

He frowns.

But his jaw sets, and he stays there.

“I’ve… only ever been with someone once,” he says, haltingly, like it hurts, “I mean… I’ve slept with people. Many.”

“Many?”

“Not…” he blinks fast, “quite a few. But… I’ve only been someone’s one time.”

I nod, fast, _Uh, yeah, me too. I mean… apart from the sleeping with many of other people thing. We should start a club._

“I thought it was what I wanted. I thought… it felt, normal. No. It felt good.”

 _Sure. Easily the motto for our new club._

“I was his…” his voice cracks, hard, but he doesn’t look away, “What do you know about Dom-Sub relationships?”

 _Well._

 _I wasn’t expecting that._

 _Nope._

“Uh…” I lean back a little, more out of the feeling that he needs me to than out of any kind of reaction, but… okay, maybe there’s just a little bit of that. Just a little. “Not a lot. Um… like, uh, fetish… stuff?”

 _I know what I’ve seen in porn._

 _Or on late night HBO._

 _Dominance and Submission?_

 _It’s never really appealed to me…_

He exhales and kind of sags into the chair, “Some of it. Yeah. But… it was more than just, _play_.”

“What does that… mean?” I feel like I’m whispering but it’s the loudest freaking whisper in history. I think he can see my pulse, which is fucking racing, because he’s staring at my neck.

“It wasn’t just… sex. That was…” he licks his lip, looking trapped, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I’m sorry. I--”

“No, I… I asked,” I ease back, sitting down on the couch again.

“He… decided when I slept. What I ate. Where I went. And, these,” he lifts his arms, “he decided on these.”

His sleeves are bunched up near his elbows and the tattoos look beautiful and smooth and light, like cream in coffee.

“And I loved it. I wanted him to.”

“Is that…” _in for a penny in for a pound_ , I stare at his tattoos and fold my hands together, “is that what you like?”

 _Could I be that guy? Could I--_

“No,” he says firmly, “Not at all. That’s… not what I’m… I actually, uh, _hate_ feeling… like that. Now. It _works_ for some people, it makes them _happy_. But… I just, wasn’t one of those people, really.” He reaches for his wine again, “I just thought… if…” he drinks, “I’ve got some baggage.”

I nod, “Okay.”

My hands are sweaty.

“So have I killed this?”

“No.”

He laughs, and wipes wine from his lip with his finger, “You sure? You look like I just kicked a puppy.”

 _Do I?!_

 _Dammit._

“No!” I protest too loudly, “I just… I don’t really know much about it,” _and I feel like you were hurt and that makes me feel all ragey inside in a way that I could never, ever explain to you or anyone else, like I want to Hulk-out and rip phonebooks_ , “Just… processing.”

“It was a long time ago. And I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m… sitting alone at night brooding about it or anything. I’m fine. Really. I just, I thought you should know. Maybe it would help explain why I’m…” he takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, “why I need to go slow.”

“Go slow?”

“If this _is_ …” he swallows, “going.”

I feel a lot of things.

I feel like crying into my crying-pillow.

I feel like phone-book ripping.

I feel like smoking more.

I feel like laughing hysterically on the hallway floor.

I feel like jumping off a cliff.

“I’d… like it to _go_ ,” I look down at my giant feet for a second, then back up at him, “Slow. I like slow. Slow is definitely my speed.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, uh…” I lean forward until my chest is against my thighs, _not that this has anything on Dominance and Submission, but..._ “I’ve only ever been with one person, too. But, I mean… I’ve _really_ only been with him. Ever.”

“Oh.”

I laugh, and it feels good, like a purge, “And we broke up three years ago. And… it’s been a long dry spell.”

“ _Three_ years?”

“Yeah!” I’m laughing, “Isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?”

He’s smiling, and leans forward, setting his wine down on the coffee table, “I’ve heard sadder things…” he puts his glasses back on, “but, yeah, that’s pretty fucking sad.”

I laugh harder and reach out to touch his knee, “Christ, I know!”

“Does it still work?”

“Shut up!” I sit up and lay against the back of the couch, “Of course it does!”

He doesn’t lean back, and he’s close and I can see his throat bobbing around a laugh I can’t hear.

“Okay. So. Let me just be clear… you don’t want to wear a collar or anything?”

He laughs, hard, loud. _Like a purge_.

“Christ, no!”

“Because I don’t have a whip or anything--”

His head falls forward, laughing out loud.

“No, that’s a lie. I do own one. I was Indiana Jones for Halloween when I was ten. So… I have one. Technically. But that seems like ten different kinds of wrong, doesn’t it?”

He’s still bent, laughing, “No! That’s not what I want.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“So…”

“Yeah.”

I feel like I’ve just run ten miles.

But it’s out there.

All of it.

We both agree that smoking a little more is a great idea.

We smoke, and talk for a little while longer, not about _going_ or about collars or about dry-spells… but just… talking.

But it’s late.

And we’re both exhausted.

And he’s catching a train at eight.

I try to talk him into letting me give him a ride home, but he refuses.

He wants to walk.

We both stand awkwardly in the dark entryway.

He’s got his coat on, and a scarf, and a beanie and it all looks like armor in the dark.

He reaches for the doorknob.

And I hug him.

That’s all. Just a hug.

But I feel like I’ve never hugged anyone like this. And I don’t want to let him go, because he just _fits_ there.

And after about a minute, I feel his arms settle around my waist.

He hugs me back.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

I feel him laugh against my chest.


	27. Chapter 27

I drive to the airport singing loudly and without shame.

Which is easy because I’m in the car alone.

It’s about an hour both ways and I made a pop-heavy playlist that will safely carry me all the way there and another more respectable, more obscure playlist that won’t give my siblings anything to judge me about.

I have, in recent months, developed a great love for Rihanna from out of the blue. I’m not exactly ready to tell anyone about it yet. So far… I’m happy to stay in the Rihanna closet.

I’m really happy. Like, really. The kind of stupid happy where you can’t stop grinning. All day. I’ve just been jaunty and smiley and even running into the Dragon-Lady who was deeply irate about uncollected dog shit on the lawn ( _which, I was quick and happy to point out was way, way too small to have come from Bradley_ ) did not dampen my spirits.

Nope.

Garrett Hawke is a happy man.

I’m wearing my red t-shirt and the black cardigan that, the first time he saw it, Andy said made me look like a friendly grandpa who would have pockets stuffed with Kleenex and Werther’s Originals ( _which I didn’t think sounded all that bad, really_ ).

The cardigan is just comfortable… but the red t-shirt? That’s relevant.

It’s my airport t-shirt.

It’s a Hawke tradition dating back to a time early in my parents' marriage when my dad was traveling a lot for work. He was as tall as I am, but wider… never a difficult guy to spot in a crowd by any means, my dad.

And he always wore a red t-shirt when flying.

Mom assumed it was a superstition… like that ratty old red t-shirt would somehow keep him safe in the air. But she finally broke down and asked him about it.

He told her that he wore it so she’d be able to find him right away because he’s already missed her for long enough and didn’t want to waste anymore time apart.

From that point on, anytime she’d pick him up, she’d also wear red… and she’d dress whatever collection of the three of us she had with us in red as well.

So… it’s a thing. You’re a Hawke? You’ve got to wear red to the airport.

I’m… not nervous about meeting this guy that Bethany’s bringing home.

Nervous isn’t the right word. But…

I don’t know.

It’s just… it’s the first time I’ve seen her since she moved away…

And this is also the first boy she’s ever, ever brought home.

 _I’m old. My baby sister is bringing a guy home for Thanksgiving._

I’m not territorial about the holiday. Clearly. We’ve always invited lots of people to holiday stuff… always. Mom loves having the house full to bursting. With Merrill finally confirming her spot at the table… I’ve basically invited everyone I know, save Varric who will be in the Caribbean anyway ( _because he’s a pirate_ ).

I miss Bethany. _A lot_. I haven’t entirely understood how much until right now when I’m about to see her again.

And, Carver, too… in his own prickly way.

Somewhere near the middle of _S &M_, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I turn the radio down like someone just caught me belting the chorus, and fumble with the stupid hands-free headset.

By the time I answer it, I've missed his call. He doesn't leave voicemails.

Well, that's not true. He did leave me one... and it was the _weirdest_ voicemail I've ever heard. He told me later that he's just not _good_ with voicemail.

We’ve hung out since he came back from the wedding.

Nothing… intense.

Nothing even all that date-like.

 _After that night…_ I mean, we’re both really committed to slow.

I took him to IKEA on a Saturday afternoon to buy a new lamp ( _the tear in my current paper lamp started taunting me like something out of Edgar Allen Poe_ ) and I was endlessly amused by the abject misery on his face the entire time.

He didn’t complain… but he really didn’t like it.

I mean… IKEA on a Saturday afternoon is not for the uninitiated really.

It’s a marathon… not a sprint.

I smile, thinking about it, and lean my elbow against the door, gnawing on my knuckle.

While he didn’t share my enthusiasm for the wonders of IKEA, even a little bit, he was there with _me_.

...

My forearms stick to the surface of the high round table in the airport food court where I sit watching Carver tear into a third Big Mac. It's pretty disgusting.

He surprised me.

He _is_ wearing a red airport shirt.

“So, now…” he looks up at me, special sauce unnoticed on his cheek, “the no-sleeves thing. Is that a fraternity requirement or a personal preference?”

What was once a t-shirt he has hastily converted into a tank top.

I can’t _not_ mock him for this.

It’s freaking November.

“I like it,” he shakes his head at me, and devours, “It’s more comfortable.”

“What do you do with the sleeves?”

“What?”

“Do you make anything out of them or do you just throw them away?” I smile, innocently, “If you had enough you could make a quilt.”

“You’re _really_ a funny guy, you know that?”

“You’ve got something, here,” I reach across the table with a paper napkin and dab at his cheek.

He swats me away.

I’m laughing, “Oh, baby brother… I missed you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Desperately, yes.”

I had taken my cardigan off while waiting for him at arrivals, so as to wear my red shirt correctly, but I’ve put it back on now. My phone is a heavy weight in one of the pockets. I hold it in my hand. I'd feel it if anyone called.

Carver had rushed a fraternity as soon as he could.

In a way, it makes perfect sense.

He’s the kind of guy that that really _works_ for.

The sleeves business, though?

It’s really silly.

He’s sitting there eating Big Macs in the airport and flexing. For whom? I can’t tell.

But he’s doing it.

 _Oh, Carver._

Oh… to be young.

I take out my phone and check the time.

“I think we should head over and wait,” I say. He nods, and inhales a fistful of fries.

We make out way back to arrivals and wait for another twenty minutes.

She’s on the tarmac.

I take off my cardigan.

She peels around the corner, wearing a loose red sweater, her eyes immediately seeking out the two giants in red shirts.

“Ahh!!” she runs toward me at full tilt, arms open.

She collides with my chest and I pick her up, wrapping my arms awkwardly around the backpack she has on.

“You have a beard!” she scratches my face.

“Hello to you too,” I kiss her cheek, and she lets go of me to harass Carver who is, as ever, painfully stoic and disdainful of our display.

“Shea’s getting his luggage,” she says, cheeks flushed.

“ _Shea_ is it?”

She hits me in the stomach with the back of her hand, “Be nice! Please.”

“When am I ever not nice?”

“That’s a good point, Gare-Bear,” she grabs my wrist, “What is this?”

I laugh, “It’s a… friendship bracelet.”

Carver rolls his eyes. Her eyebrows go up, “From Tattoos?”

“No.”

“Tattoos?” Carver looks at me, judgy, “Who is _Tattoos_?”

“Do I get to meet him? Oh my god, I’ll die if I can’t meet him. Did you invite him--”

“ _Who_ is Tattoos?” Carver says a little more forcefully.

“He’s a friend.”

“Oh… look at that face!” Bethany grabs my chin, “ _Friend_ , huh?”

“Yes! That’s… yes.”

“ _Oh…_ ” Carver nods, looking wise and disaffected, “Oh, I see.”

She’s dressed like every girl that lived on my floor freshman year. Shirt off the shoulder, beanie, feather earrings, silly tights… and paint under her stubby, short, bitten nails.

She pinches my sides, “Look at you! You were getting a little tubby for a while… but you look great!”

“ _Tubby?_ When was I ever tubby?”

“Take the compliment, Garrett,” she says, sounding exactly like mother before turning to look over her shoulder.

A kid comes out, eyes only on her.

That must be Shea then.

His hair is…

 _Ridiculous._

...

My mother, and it would seem Sebastian, have quite the dessert spread laid out by the time we get to the house.

Feeling protective, I insisted that Bethany sit in the front, with me, and left Seamus in the backseat with Carver, who fell asleep about twenty minutes into the drive holding the box of porn possessively in his lap after finding it in the trunk while we were loading in backpacks.

 _My heart is literally warmed by witnessing such a sweet reunion between a man and his one true love._

Shea… or, rather, _Seamus_ , was very quiet on the ride back.

He did compliment my taste in music… a lot.

He’s the mayor’s son.

He’s not an art student. Not a student at all. Nope. He moved across the country to… find himself.

And while looking for himself, it seems he found Bethany.

After a flurry of welcome hugs and kisses and introductions ( _Sebastian is, apparently, "Garrett's old-friend Sebastian"_ ) they’re sitting in the living room now, the three of them, watching something Muppets and drinking hot cocoa out of turkey-shaped mugs, immediately willing to shed all pretense of adulthood in the thrall of the comforts of home.

I remember feeling like that.

I’m being nostalgic and playing with a banana-shaped magnet.

“Hey,” Sebastian squeezes past me, grabbing an oven mitt off the counter, “Remember these?”

“Uh, yeah!” I say. These cookies. She only ever bakes them between November 22rd and December 25th and they are spectacular.

She calls them Brigadoon Cookies, because they only exist for a very narrow window of time.

My mother _loves_ musical theater.

“I’ve been looking forward to these all day,” he says, shifting the cookie sheet out of the oven, setting it on the stove top and transferring them onto a cooling rack, “How, uh, how are you?”

“Great!”

I legitimately am.

Brigadoon Cookies are only improving the state of things.

“And, uh… how’s… Andy?”

He holds my gaze for a second.

“He’s _really great_ , thanks for asking,” I say, trying so hard not to smile.

I’ve had no reason to tell him that, while near and dear to me in his own way, Andy is not my new guy.

 _I should tell him._

I guess.

But now it’s been going on long enough… _eh_.

“That’s… nice.”

“Oh!” Mother comes in and scoots next to Sebastian, smelling the cookies, “It’s _officially_ the holiday season now!”

I try to grab one while they are still gooey and her back is turned. It’s cool enough to hold, but I burn my tongue.

“Ahh…”

“Here,” Sebastian’s there, offering me a glass of milk.

“…Thanks.”

He smiles.

And while the milk is appreciated, the smile is not.

“Garrett,” my mother pulls me down, and whispers, “Apparently, Mr. Dumar is a vegetarian.”

“No… he’s a vegan,” I say smugly, and she wipes chocolate from my chin, “which is so much _worse_.”

Hawkes are carnivores, through and through.

“What…” she sighs, “I wish I’d known… what can we make for him? I mean… Tofu?”

 _I imagine my mother, who has never, I think, so much as seen tofu in her life, presenting a plate bearing a watery, jiggling cube of tofu to Seamus with the Ridiculous Hair as if it were a delicacy._

“I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about it.”

"Turkey's in the basement fridge," she says, looking into the middle distance in a way that means she's scrolling through a mental list, "when are you off work tomorrow?"

"Same time as always."

Prep begins in earnest tomorrow.

That turkey's getting _brined_ à la the style of my muse, Alton Brown.

Sebastian is just kind of loitering behind her, leaning against the sink eating a cookie.

 _I haven't had more than a few minutes alone with Mom since he... reappeared._

 _Relocated?_

 _Reinserted himself into my life--_

 _Nope._

 _'Reinserted' is too wrong._

 _A part of me is dying to find out what they actually do together all day._

 _She really has always loved him; She's a sucker for an accent and a pair of pretty blue eyes... always has been._

My phone vibrates.

“Oh…” she looks down at my cardigan pocket, then at my cardigan itself, picking at it, “Garrett, where did you get this ratty old thing?”

I laugh, and look at my phone.

 **From: Andy  
Body:  
Bonfire at Wounded Beach. Bring marshmallows and/or whiskey.**

 _That does sound good._

“Who is that?” Mother asks, slipping her readers on.

“Andy.”

She makes an appreciative if intentionally restrained noise, while Sebastian’s eyes snap to the phone in my hand.

“The Andy you’re… bringing to dinner?” she tries to see the screen of my phone.

I laugh and press it against my chest, “Yes!”

 _Technically… true._

“Mmm! Are you… going out? Tonight?”

Sebastian goes red from his ears down the sides of his neck, which I know from years of exposure means that he's really, really uncomfortable.

“I think so, yeah,” I say all nonchalant. _No big deal, Sebastian. You know._

“Ooh. Well. That sounds nice,” she pats my cheek, “Sebastian, dear, how are the cranberries?”

“They’re… fine,” he mumbles, brushing crumbs from his fingers into the sink as if offended by them.

 _Okay, it’s a lie…_

 _I’m not a guy that lies._

 _Ever._

 _But… well at the very least, Andy will get a kick out of this._

...

He’s wrapped up in a blanket and dressed in a hoodie with the hood pulled up against the cold and laughing so hard that he topples over, laying on his back in the cold dark sand.

“You’re so devious, kitten! I'd have never guessed you were capable,” Isabela puts a new log on the fire, sending up a spray of sparks, and then hops over to pull up Andy who, still laughing, is incapable of getting himself back into a seated position.

“I can… I can see him, there, with a cookie!” he sighs jaggedly, hair whipping across his face.

“I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a self-righteous git,” Merrill says placidly, carefully assembling a s’more and then settling back under the blanket we’re sharing, “I still can’t believe you slept with him, Andy," marshmallow oozes out of the sides and over her fingers, "Was it amazing?”

“I’ve already told you all about it, sweetheart,” he smiles.

“Oh… I know… but you know I like to hear all the dirty bits again and again.”

“Yes. Three years of pent up, shameful, sexual urges?" he looks apraisingly at me for a second, "It was great. Fantastic. _Divine_. He did this thing with his tongue… He rolls his R’s, and--”

“I’m pulling ex-boyfriend rank here!” I say, raising my hand in the air.

 _I know exactly what tongue thing he’s talking about though._

“Noted,” he winks at Merrill, “I’ll tell you again later.”

She grins at him and tilts her head side to side in a little pervy dance.

Isabela pours a healthy amount of whiskey into a tin camping cup and then flops unceremoniously onto Andy’s lap.

“Oof!”

“Oh, you love it,” she says, wiggling in against him and reaching back to offer him some whiskey. He drinks and wraps his blanket around them both.

“Do you want a bite of my s’more, Garrett?” Merrill asks, holding it out as it starts crumbling.

“I do, actually,” I take it from her and try to eat it back into shape.

Wounded Beach is a kind of sheltered cove, but it’s still frigging cold out here.

Stepping even a little bit away from the fire, like the jog back up to the car to get the skewers for marshmallows was brutal, and Merrill is warm and soft and curled up against me.

Andy’s chin is propped on Bela’s shoulder and his eyes are closed.

She had the whiskey in her trunk. It's expensive.

“So…” she says, “noticed that you didn’t invite Fen to this.”

“I… didn’t know that I should,” I say, handing back a smaller if more manageable s’more to Merrill.

Isabela rolls her eyes at me.

“Hey!” I squint at her, “What happened to all those Wingman Rules? Huh? I feel like maybe I could have done with a little dropped knowledge to guide my way.”

“You want a retroactive rule?” Isabela asks, “Rule Number… Whatever: When going to a romantic nighttime beach bonfire, invite the boy you want to sleep with.”

“Helpful in so many situations,” I say, nodding.

“Quite.”

I have not told them what he told me about his relationship.

 _I told them that we talked… and that he knew about my situation and that we went to IKEA and that…_

I smile.

Oh, his face standing there in the lighting section was so good.

So funny and patient in a really dour way and I wanted to kiss him.

I wanted to grab him and kiss him at IKEA.

“You _could_ call him,” Merrill says softly, nibbling marshmallow goo from between her fingers. “Invite him now?”

“He doesn’t have a car… he couldn’t get out here.”

“Oh…” she pats my arm, “another time then.”

I think about it.

How nice it would be to have him here.

What he’d look like by the fire.

What it’d feel like to be curled up with him under a blanket.

To hold on to him.

I wrap my arms around Merrill and pull her in close.

“Oh, Garrett! Careful! I’m very full!” she nestles her head against my chest, “You smell like boy.”

“Is that bad?”

“No. I like it.”

And it’s nice. Just to be out there, mostly quiet with the three of them, listening to the sound of the waves and the fire.

It’s only Tuesday.

There is a long freaking holiday 'weekend' ahead.

Andy kisses Isabela’s neck and whispers something to her that makes her smile, broadly, and laugh… that unselfconscious, guffaw that I’ve noticed she only does when there’s no one else around.

I’m really looking forward to this Thanksgiving, because of Bethany and her weird vegan boyfriend, Carver... being Carver, and Mother, the seemingly limitless opportunities to heckle Sebastian who is so deserving of heckling…

Because of Fen.

And because of these three.

 _Thanksgiving, like IKEA, is a marathon… not a sprint._


	28. Chapter 28

Bethany pulls me aside.

I’d stopped by the house to check in on my brine (which is doing well) and collect a panic-scrawled shopping list from Mom before picking up Fen and going to Whole Foods.

“You’re doing turkey and Shea’s food?”

“Apparently,” I feel cornered.

And, yes… I’m in charge of the turkey (a handsome fellow who is currently relaxing in the garage fridge and will begin the overnight brining process when I get back) and Seamus Dumar’s vegan options.

His family lives in town ( _obviously, his father is the mayor_ ) and he’s sleeping there ( _propriety!_ ) but eating with us… and spending just about every non-sleeping hour with us.

Er, with Bethany.

At the moment he’s momentarily left alone in the living room reading _Moby Dick_.

He’s nice. I like him.

He’s really into Greenpeace, though.

I mean… I remember being that age and being an activist about everything.

I guess now I’m just old and tired. When did that happen exactly?

She pokes me in the chest, “What about cross contamination?”

“I wash my hands!”

“You can’t get any meat juice or… butter or anything in his food.”

I bite my lip, “Is he allergic to meat? Will he swell up?”

“No!” she slaps my gut gently, “But… his principles.”

“Come on, Bethy…”

I’ve seen Bethany tear apart bloody steaks the size of her face like a grizzly bear. She's a carnivore, and I'll admit, it made me really proud to find out that while she respects his lifestyle choice, she's in no way interested in not eating meat herself.

“It’s,” she’s smiling, so at least she thinks it’s a little _ridiculous_ “important.”

“ _You_ could cook his food,” I say.

“What? And reinforce every fricking gender role in the book? Should I wear a frilly apron? And heels? Pearls? Maybe I’ll love it and never go back to school and just, stay in the kitchen--”

“Okay, okay!” I raise my hands, “I’m not trying to oppress you!”

“Anyway, you’re a much better cook than I am.”

“Thanks for saying so,” I pull on my coat and pat my pocket, making sure I’ve got my list, “Listen, Andy and Isabela and Merrill are going to be popping in… at some point. They were a little sketchy of the details,” which makes me nervous, “So… I beg of you, please be Garrett in my stead if I’m not back when they get here.”

“Be Garrett?” she hops up on the counter, “What does that entail?”

There is a pervy glint in her eye and I feel that she’s just going to love my friends.

And they’re going to love her.

Maybe too much.

 _Oh, god._

“Be charming, brutally-yet-sensitively masculine, a sucker for pretty green eyes and, most importantly, a buffer between the nice new people and Mother. And…” I jut my chin towards the dining room where Sebastian is fussing with the plates in the big oak hutch, “I trust you, Little Sister, with my life and with my friends,” I zip up, “Also, I do wear a frilly apron when I’m cooking, you know, one that’s positively festooned. I hate gender roles as much as you do.”

She chucks a cold dinner roll at my head.

…

I don’t know why I keep taking him shopping. He obviously hates it... but I think a big part of it is that we're definitely spending time together, but shopping's so low-pressure that neither one of us... bolts.

I stupidly invited him to come with me to the Whole Foods the day before Thanksgiving.

He’s shuffling behind me, watching the other shoppers with a critical eye ( _two really pretty, moss green eyes_ ) as I load up the cart.

A very tiny baby in a Bjorn is screaming next to the squash.

Fen rubs the back of his neck and then starts poking around in the yams.

“Hey, do you…” he looks up at me holding a ridiculously over priced and rudely shaped yam in his hands, and it makes me laugh, “…this is a miserable place! I’m sorry.”

He smirks and sets down the cocky yam and is bodily shoved forward by an older yuppie in a track suit who is apparently here on urgent yam business.

( _Actually… he’s a Yippie; the worst of the worst, a Yuppie-Hippie. I have a real soft spot I my heart for real honest to god hippies because two of them fell in love, got high and made me… but Yippies?_ )

“I think I actually liked IKEA better,” he says dryly, suddenly very close to me. We are pinned together between the cart and the Yippie who seems to have no concept of personal space and keeps edging in on Fen’s.

I don’t know what makes me do it.

I push back a little of his hair that’s fallen over his glasses with my finger.

His eyes close.

“Excuse me,” the Yippie wedges between us, reaching for a biodegradable vegetable bag from the dispenser next to my arm.

Fen pulls the much folded list out of his pocket and looks at it, deliberately side stepping the Yippie in a wide circle to stand next to me.

He’s ever so slightly bow-legged.

A fact which I find endlessly attractive.

“So…” he hands the list to me, “you’re cooking the turkey?”

“Yes,” I have done so since I was fifteen. For some reason, at fifteen, I just really, really wanted to do it. Dad taught me everything he knew about turkey… and the Mom taught me how to actually cook one.

Alton taught me the rest.

“Are you going back after… this?”

“To Mom’s?” I look at him. “Yeah. I need to brine. It's Prep Day.”

Basically, Hawke-Thanksgiving is not a one day event. People don't just show up and eat. No. Prep Day is as important and collaborative. “I’ll actually be sleeping there tonight too. It’s,” I laugh and start pushing the cart, “it’s a whole thing.”

“Ahh,” he walks next to me, “Can I help?”

“You want to help prep?”

I’d told the others about Prep Day, foolishly, and they all looked at me all wide eyed. They were enchanted by the idea. I didn’t think they were staying over… but depending on how much wine Mom had stocked in the house ( _lots_ ) there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be the only one crashing in the basement.

Oh yeah, Prep Day is also a drinking holiday.

I had not told Fen about Prep Day. It was too much.

Too… intense.

But the last thing I want to do is tell him no.

“If you want. Yeah. I’d…” It’ll be fine… “I’d really like help.”

 _I really like you._

“Okay.”

“I can drop you off at home after Prep stuff…”

“Sure, yeah.”

Certainly this is a fine idea.

The others will be there, on Seb-Duty.

Also, Mom’s attention will be widespread, like buckshot.

She’s going to love Andy, and think Isabela is exotic and that Merrill is adorable…

 _And that Fen is...?_

His arm brushes mine as a different Yippie squeezes by him.

“I’d like to grab my camera on the way, if that’s okay with you.”

I smile, “Uh, yeah!”

Mom will be delighted.

She always wants nice pictures of us and of the things we do together, but I don’t think she’s ever taken a picture in her life that wasn’t as least 40% thumb.

I hurry to get the rest of the stuff, but we linger in the wine section which is surprisingly quiet by comparison.

He picks out a few bottles and we head (so, so slowly) through the checkout. I eat about ten cookie samples, enough that the cashier gives me a look and takes her time replacing what I ate.

“I’ve got these,” he says, holding back the wine from the pile of groceries I load on the belt.

“You sure?”

He nods.

So I’m hovering there, trying to keep my cart, now teeming with brown bags ( _I have a very nice reusable bag… in my kitchen_ ) out of the way of other people.

He swipes a debit card.

And I don’t mean to look.

Really.

I’m very respectful of people’s pin-pad interactions, and usually I’ll actually look up and away because I legitimately can see over everyone’s shoulder…

But I look.

And it doesn’t say _Fen_ or any variation of _Fen_ on that card.

 _Leto._

His first name is Leto.

I feel like a tectonic plate shifts under my feet, way, way down.

His name is Leto.

Which is, _wow_ , really, really sexy--

 _But..._

But I didn't know. And officially I still don't.

 _Leto._

He slides the card back into his wallet, slides wallet into his pocket and then takes the wine without bagging and we walk out to the Saturn to load everything back in.

 _Huh._

…

We stop by his place for equipment and my place to grab Bradley, who will also be sleeping over at Mom’s.

I park in the driveway. We unload as much as we can in one trip and as we’re walking up the fake-stone path to the door, I look down. He steps over the three concrete blocks that Carver, Bethany and I were forced to make hand prints in when Mom had made these bricks for a different walkway at a different house.

I swallow.

Bradley collides with the door like a battering ram.

I hear Andy’s voice from inside.

“Oh thank god!” I say, jogging past him to open the front door with my hip.

 _They’re here._

“Andy?”

“The dog?!”

“Yes. I’m going to bring him through, okay?”

If I didn’t like Andy so damn much this would be really annoying.

I set down the grocery bags on the porch and grab Bradley’s collar. I open the door and he pulls me inside like a tug boat.

I quickly shuttle him through the house to the back door and let him out into the yard. Mom’s already put out food and water for him in absolutely ridiculous quantities.

I jog back through the house.

Fen’s just starting to make his way inside, and Andy’s holding the door open for him.

“Thanks, man,” Fen says quietly.

“Garrett,” Mom slips her readers on and crouches by the bags, riffling through, “I didn’t put Granny Smiths on the list--”

“I got them.”

“Oh you’re so good, baby,” she smiles up at me, then looks at Fen, “Oh. Hello. You must be…”

“Fen,” he says, extending his hand to her and making the kind of shy darting eye contact that makes my heart seize up a little every time I see him do it.

“Very nice to meet you, Fen. I’m Leandra. Did _you_ get a physical exam today too?”

His eyebrows go up slightly as my stomach sinks.

 _It was going to well there. So normal._

“Uhh…” he looks at me.

“Oh, I’m sorry," she pats his arm, "What a batty question! Out of the blue like that! Hah!” she stands up, “These two both got physical exams today,” she points at Andy and Merrill, “What needs to go in the fridge, sweetheart?”

“Huh?” I look at Andy and Merrill confused, “uh… this bag is fridge stuff,” I tap it with my foot, “You went to the doctor... together? You okay?”

“Well, yes,” Merrill says, “I had my, uh, annual, but I hate doctors… and I don’t like to go alone. I get so worried in the waiting room unless I have someone to talk with… I’m always convinced they’re going to take one look at me and tell me I’m dying. I’d normally have asked Bela to go with me, but she was working…”

“So _you_ took Merrill to the doctor?” I say to Andy.

Mom, having heard the story already, picks up the fridge bag and disappears into the kitchen.

“Gynecologist, actually,” Andy says.

“Oh!”

“At the free clinic,” Merrill adds humbly.

Andy shrugs, “So I figured I was there, and there was an opening… not a lot of people there the day before Thanksgiving for whatever reason... I figured I might as well get checked out too.”

“…Great.”

“I think it is great, Garrett!” Mom pokes her head out of the kitchen, “Taking responsibility of their sexual health! When did you last get checked out, baby?”

I sigh.

Fen’s biting his lip, with his head down but when he looks at me he's smiling.

 _I'm so glad you think this is funny._

“About a year ago...” I say.

“All clear?” Fen asks, low, losing the fight to keep a full on smile at bay.

“Yes!” I feel my cheeks go red.

“It’s so important,” Mother comes back out, picking up another bag, “Do you think Carver--”

“Mom!” Bethany steps forward, “Let me help you with that.”

And then it’s just the four of us standing there.

“Well…” I sigh, “Welcome to Prep Day.”

"Oh, I think she's magnificent, Garrett," Merrill says excitedly, "Nice to see you again, Fen."

I hear a bottle of wine being opened in the kitchen.

"You guys all sure about this? It's like the Underworld; as soon as you eat something you can't leave."

Fen laughs.

 _That deep, scratchy laugh._

Andy looks at him, and then at me, "We're sure, right Merrill?"

"MMhmm..."

"Fen?"

He nods.

"All right then, who wants to watch me brine a turkey?"


	29. Chapter 29

Sebastian only has eyes for Andy.

It’s a little weird, I admit it.

And obvious.

Mom doesn't seem to have noticed, but... again, there's a lot going on.

Bethany finally pulls me away from cracking walnuts at the dining room table with Fen to ask me what the hell was going on there.

I tell her everything and when she finishes laughing she grabs my arm, “What an asshole!”

“I know…”

“You should tell Mom.”

“What?”

She rolls her eyes, “Before you came back, she was grilling Andy like… _what are your intentions towards my son?_ But, you know… in like a Mom way.”

I can only imagine.

“I’ll… tell her.”

“You should tell her _everything_. She’ll kick him out.”

“Not on Prep Day!”

She tilts her head, looking at me like I’m an idiot, “She’s a Mama Bear. If anyone hurts one of her cubs? Prep Day or not--”

“He didn’t hurt me,” that’s a lie.

“Yes he did. I remember.”

I sigh, “It was a long time ago. He’s clearly a mess.”

“And not your responsibility,” she says wisely, “…but you’ve got that big, stupid heart in there and you care and… that’s who you are.”

“Where’s Seamus?”

“Peeling potatoes with Merrill. She’s got a lot of questions for him… I think he’s really excited to have someone else who…”

I smirk, “Cares?”

“Shut up, Gare-Bear.”

I look over her shoulder at Fen who is quietly cracking away.

There’s something totally incongruous about seeing him there, sitting at our dining table.

 _It’s intimate in a way that surprises me._

The doorbell rings and Andy darts by, the front of his shirt covered in flour.

“Tiger! Look at you!”

"I'm domestic!" he says back cheerfully.

 _Isabela’s here._

 _So… that’s everybody._

Everyone is scattered all over the house working away on tasks assigned and monitored by Mom ( _everyone except for Carver… I don’t even know what he’s doing. Well. I don’t know, but I have a guess…_ ).

Mom loves it.

If she could have had twenty children, Duggar-style, she would have.

Andy grabs Isabela, ignoring her as she protests and swats at his chest, raising a light cloud of flour dust as he dips her back and kisses her in a dramatic movie-style kiss.

“Oh, I like your friends,” Bethany says, walking away from me to introduce herself to Isabela.

…

I’m not sure where Fen is.

Which concerns me greatly.

The sun's gone down and we're all exhausted. Prep Day is like that. But it feels good... the kind of whole body tired you feel after swimming or hiking.

It’s the end of Prep Day proper, and now all that’s left to do is check on all the things that need to be checked or rotated or stirred on specific schedules and, more importantly, to sit around and drink wine.

Fen won Mom over when he started taking pictures of the Prep.

Her face had lit up and she started giddily asking him questions about the camera and his artistic process.

I loved watching him patiently explain it to her.

I leave the couch, surrendering my seat next to Andy which is quickly filled by Bethany. Seamus cuddles in next to her.

Sebastian's pouring wine.

Even Carver’s in there, having finally descended from the masturbatorium at the promise of alcohol (Mom never had much of a problem letting us drink underage as long as we did it at home).

The upstairs bathroom door is open and the light is off, so he’s not in there, but...

I turn around.

He’s in mom’s office.

 _Oh, god._

He turns and looks at me, smiling, “Sorry. I uh…”

Behind him on the wall is a mad spatter of framed school pictures of the three of us.

Every year is represented there… from kindergarten to each of our senior years.

It's disorganized and a lot of the frames are crooked and mismatched. You can see the wall when leaving the bathroom. It looms like a shrine to the awkwardest years of my awkward life.

I stare at eighth grade me, without a doubt the worst of the worst, and cringe.

It’s… humiliating.

“I didn't know you had braces?”

I sigh, “Yeah. For a long time.”

I run my tongue self consciously across my teeth. _Still crooked… after all that._

I fidget.

It’s kind of like… Hey, here’s my whole life. Take a look.

“It’s fascinating,” he says, looking back at the wall.

“What?”

“The… it’s a record. A visual record.”

 _Of every bad haircut, breakout, and…_

 _why did I wear so many stripped shirts?!_

 _I really liked stripes._

“I don’t…” he clears his throat, “I don’t have anything like this. I… I went to a lot of schools, and, I got my picture taken every year, but… no one has them now.”

It feels like a punch to the lungs.

We’re standing next to each other, side by side, looking at the brief visual record of my life between five and eighteen, and I don’t have anything to say.

Nothing.

 _I want to say I’m sorry._

 _That I’d keep his picture._

I try to imagine him as a kid.

As a teenager.

A teenager without tattoos.

A teenager named _Leto_ and not _Fen_.

I want to ask him... I really, really do... but I can't. Not right now.

I feel like he must have been so much cooler than me. I was a mess.

I look at seventeen year old me.

 _Hopeless._

I smile.

Our hands are close, hanging at our sides.

I let my hand move to his, brushing his fingers lightly with mine.

He looks down, and brushes back, just as lightly; cautious.

I breathe out slowly, looking down, and run my thumb against the inside of his wrist. _I can feel his pulse._

He moves his body closer.

I hear a cheer and applause from the living room.

“Oh, god…” I laugh, nervously. “I should…” I swallow, “I don’t like the sound of that.”

He smiles and pulls back.

“I can drop you off whenever you want,” my voice cracks.

“Whenever, yeah.”

“Thank you,” I smile, “I… this has been…”

“It’s… nice. Interesting,” he pushes his sleeves up, “It’s my first Thanksgiving in years.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nods.

I hear the beginning of _Tradition_ start playing.

My head snaps towards the living room, “Oh, come on, Mom! Not _Fiddler_.”

…

“Oh, kitten!” Isabela is beside herself, “You are so precious!”

They’re all sitting there on and around the sectional watching the video of my senior year production of _Fiddler on the Roof_ … in which I played Tevye.

Seventeen-Year-Old-Me is there, halfway through _If I Were A Rich Man_ in grainy, periodically unfocused VHS quality.

Twenty-Seven-Year-Old-Me is standing against the wall with my face in my hands.

“The arms!” Isabela coos, “Ooh! Look at his little arms!”

Mom’s standing by the TV beaming, watching me proudly.

Even Sebastian seems to be getting a kick out of this. He’s smiling, sitting on a stool behind the couch and or the first time today, not looking like he just ate a lemon while trying to hide an erection.

 _Ahh... Teenage Humiliation; It Brings People Together._

Fen’s standing next to me, leaning against the wall and I can feel him laughing silently.

Humiliating.

But at least it’s not the naked play.

At least they're all gathered around watching my penis' debut on the collegiate stage.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t look like that,” Mom exclaims, “You were great!”

I can’t look at the screen.

I watch them watching me instead.

Which is fine until Seventeen-Year-Old-Me gets to my big Yiddish finish, and I can’t take it.

I turn and head back into the kitchen.

I can still hear myself, and the peanut gallery, a round of, “Oh, come back!”

I laugh and try to shake it off, shaking my arms out.

The kitchen is dark and comforting and smells like warm sugar.

I jump when a warm hand closes around my wrist.

I turn, and before I can say anything, Fen’s pulled me down to him.

 _His lips are so warm and so soft._

I gasp.

I’ve wanted to touch him all day.

All day.

I kiss him back, bending and holding his face between my hands.

I feel like something opens up in my chest.

My tongue finds his and I growl.

I feel his teeth on my lip.

I don’t want this to stop.

 _Yes!_

Whatever just happened…

Whatever it was that he saw in Tevye that made him follow me in here are kiss me…

 _Thanks, Seventeen-Year-Old-Me._

I can still hear the video playing, distantly, like a soundtrack through time and space.

 _Seventeen-Year-Old-Me would be so excited to know that ten years later, this would happen. He wouldn't believe it._

I back Fen up against the counter, pinning him with my hips.

“I got the part,” I whisper between kisses, “because I was the only kid who could grow a beard like that.”

He laughs quietly, and kisses me. My knees buckle.

He holds me up.

We make-out in my mother’s kitchen to the sound of _Fiddler on the Roof_ and it’s so weird, and so good…

 _And I’m so fucking happy I feel like crying._

 _And singing in Yiddish._


	30. Chapter 30

I’d be perfectly content to just do this for the rest of my life.

I _really_ like kissing.

I didn’t have my first kiss until I was eighteen.

And… I feel like I’ve got so much time to make up for.

I think that I’m not naturally a very good kisser. I never really know what to do with my tongue, like... _that_ , is that right? I don't know but he’s…

Fuck. _Amazing_.

Hungry.

And strong.

I’m his.

 _I’m his if he wants me._

He can be _Fen_ or _Leto_ or whoever he wants to be.

I don’t care.

Whoever he is, I’m in.

He eases off, the kiss changes.

 _Like this is a conversation and it just dropped to a whisper._

Soft.

Small kisses, careful and light.

 _A question._

But just as raw.

 _I’ve never been kissed like this._

I’m shaking.

He must feel it.

I open my eyes and find his.

It's mostly dark in here, just the range light on over the stove, but I see _him_.

He smiles.

His lips are swollen.

 _I did that._

I have to keep kissing him or I’ll die.

He’s holding fistfuls of my hoodie, keeping me there, close.

Like I’d go.

I kiss his chin, light and sweet, the way he kissed me and when he gasps I feel like I’m floating.

There is a quick blonde blur at the edge of my vision on the other side of the fridge.

“Leandra!”

Fen and I freeze, hidden by the bulk of the fridge.

“Oof!” glasses clink, “Andy! I’m sorry I walked right into you, sweetie.”

“I have to ask… that painting there,” _god bless you, Andy_ , “Who painted that?”

Fen and I pull apart, but, god I don’t want to… _and why should I have to_?

“My husband painted that one,” I hear Mom say to him, pride in her voice, and she starts telling about it.

Fen’s looking down, straightening his shirt.

I _don’t_ care.

I kiss him again.

“Hmm,” he smiles against my mouth, “your hair.”

“Huh?”

“Just let me rinse these in the sink…”

“Oh, I’ve got that,” Andy says, total mom-charmer, and I hear the clink of glasses again.

I reluctantly step back from him, touching my hair.

 _Oh, it’s really good. Sticking up everywhere._

It’s definitely due for a cut, and just getting curlier by the day.

 _He’d grabbed it, holding on to me that way._

I shiver. A good shiver.

Andy walks in, clutching a few wine glasses between his hands.

He acts surprised to see us, “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey,” we both say.

He turns on the sink, rinsing the wine glasses.

“Here are the rest,” Mom walks in, “Oh! There you are,” she looks at me critically.

 _She knows._

“Are you still watching _it_?”

“Uh… no, sweetie,” she totally knows, “finished it up. We’re watching _Sherlock Holmes_ , if you’d like to join us again for that.”

 _Fuck, how long were we in here?_

 _That’s a long tape._

“And we’re switching to red wine,” she hands Andy the glasses in her hands.

“Ahh.”

She pats Andy’s shoulder and grabs two bottles of wine from the counter before walking back out of the kitchen.

Andy looks sideways at me, smiling like a proud parent.

…

The rest of the night goes exactly as my mother wants it to.

She plies us all with lots of wine and insists that we play board games until bedtime.

I’m completely out of my mind.

I’ve got all this adrenaline and...

 _I'm not an adrenaline guy. I don't think my body knows what to do with it. I hate roller coasters and driving fast and first person shooters..._

I'm shaking still, and it's all adrenaline.

 _I was drunk before I started drinking…_ that’s how I feel.

By the time I foolishly and giddily start spreading out the Twister mat, I know I’m too drunk to drive Fen home.

I look at him just before Mom calls out, “Left foot green!” and want to tell him that I’m sorry, but the words get stuck in my throat.

He’s sitting on the couch with Merrill, watching Andy, Isabela, Bethany and me play this stupid game and he’s… _laughing_.

He looks relaxed and happy--

“Garrett!” Bethany kicks my knee, “Left foot green!”

I don’t get around to tell him that I’m too drunk to drive him home until the game is done ( _It came down to a brutal contortionist showdown between Andy and Bethany, who both apparently take the game very, very seriously that was deeply unsettling for Carver, Seamus and me to watch_ ) by which time I’m drunker still, thanks to Mom.

“Well he should sleep over,” Mom says, pouring the rest of a bottle into my glass, “It’s so foggy outside now anyway. I’d feel better if you weren’t on the road.”

It’s well played.

A fine and delicate structure of Mom-guilt and logic… and she smiles up at me with perfect innocence.

Only Sebastian and Carver, who have given up on the rest of us and are taking a game of Jenga very seriously are totally disinterested in this turn of events; everyone else is riveted.

“He didn’t bring anything--”

“I have extras of everything,” she looks at Fen, “Toothbrush, and pajamas, whatever you need.”

He looks from her to me, “I’m… if there’s room.”

“Plenty of it!” she says.

So… that’s happening.

We’ve all been given a time and a schedule for some food that needs tending. I’ve got to flip the brining turkey at 4:00, which sounds truly awful but is this weird thing that I’ve come to really like about Thanksgiving over the years. It’s a weird, gross little ritual.

 _Sometimes I’m weird and gross._

“Bollocks!”

The Jenga falls.

Sebastian offers to give me my room back but I quickly decline.

It’s his for the time being.

I’m fine with that.

The basement’s been set up in such a way that it looks like a hostel.

She really has prepared for this.

Bedding is folded up in piles are there are air mattresses in addition to the futon.

“Also, the living room’s free if anyone doesn’t want to sleep subterranean,” she rubs my back cheerfully, showing me the basement.

Fen went with the others to grab stuff out of Andy’s car.

“Mom--”

She puts up her hands, “Does he make you happy?”

“Y-yes.”

“Does he treat you with respect?”

I swallow, “Yes.”

She pulls me down to kiss my cheek, “That’s all that matters to me, Garrett.”

I hug her, tight.

“Poor Andy, though!” she says.

I laugh, “Don’t worry too much about him.”

“Garrett! That’s a terrible thing to say! He’s very sweet and he simply adores you,” she pulls back, “I was wondering… he’s very close with Isabela?”

“ _Very_.”

“Also…” she leans in, screwing up her face, and I hear voices at the top of the stairs, “I think Sebastian’s got a crush. He’s been acting so weird today, right!?”

I laugh.

“You’re a good mom, Mom.”

She smiles, smugly, "I do the best I can."


	31. Chapter 31

A driver comes from Seamus’ family and picks him up at around midnight.

Bethany bundles up and goes outside with him to say goodbye and, in a move that I think surprises both of us, Carver and I follow her out.

I laugh and see my breath go up in front of my face.

 _Over-protective brothers? Yes._

Carver, still sleeveless, seems to be completely immune to the cold.

When we come back in, Mom is handing out supplies, assessing needs with the efficiency of a triage nurse. We all start ambling towards going to bed.

Air mattresses are inflated and bedding spread out.

While Carver grunts a _g’night_ and disappears into his room, Bethany decides that she’d rather sleep in the basement with everyone else than up in her room alone, and she’s down there now sitting between Isabela’s knees and getting her hair braided.

“You two have the same hair,” Isabela says, “So pretty. You should grow yours out, kitten,” she looks over her shoulder at me.

“Oh should I?”

“Mmm,” she turns back around, “I love longer hair on a man. There’s something so gratifying about just grabbing a handful and pulling their head back,” she leans forward and says into Bethy’s ear, “They always look so _surprised_.”

Andy’s shaggy head pops out of the hoodie he’s pulling on over a blue t-shirt.

“What’s that now?”

His hair is loose and full of static electricity.

“You like it when I pull your hair,” she says matter of factly over the top of my baby sister’s head.

He closes his eyes and smiles like a cat napping in the sun, “I really do.”

Bethany chuckles and extends her wine glass toward me.

We brought what was left of a bottle of red down with us… and it’s going fast.

I’m pouring when Fen comes down the stairs in a pair of sweatpants that are way too long and what I recognize as one of my old long sleeve t-shirts.

A part of my brain sparks like a dying light bulb.

 _He’s wearing my clothes._

 _I mean, clothes I haven’t worn for years._

 _But still mine._

There’s one big air mattress and three twins and the futon.

Andy, Bela and Merrill are suspiciously quick in claiming the three twins (almost as if they’d, you know, discussed it when I was changing into my pajamas and out of the room), Bethany takes the futon, which leaves Fen and I on the queen-sized air mattresses.

Next to each other.

“Uh…” I scratch the back of my neck, “well. There’s, uh, the living room… if…”

 _…if this is too forward._

He doesn’t look at me, standing next to me, but just looks at the air mattress, “I don’t mind.”

“I toss. And turn. A lot,” I laugh, awkwardly, and feel four sets of eyes on me even though they’re all trying really hard to look like they’re just talking to each other about sheets, or whatever.

“I could have guessed that,” he says, really quietly. Hardly audible at all.

 _Has he thought about what kind of sleeper I am?_

 _Which would mean thinking about me in bed._

 _No… maybe it’s just that I’m… wow, I am fidgeting a lot._

I try to not move anything.

 _That’s definitely weirder._

I sigh.

The others break apart as if from a huddle and all simultaneously start to loudly get settled into their beds, adjusting blankets and pillows.

Neither one of us moves.

We just stand there staring at that seemingly innocuous air mattress with Bethany’s old cloud-patterned flannel sheets spread out over the top and one of Granny Amell’s quilts spread up crookedly.

Andy’s voice gets a little louder as he pounds his pillow into shape, which is great and welcome because, wow, this basement is so much quieter than I remember.

“Hey,” he whispers, giving me a little half smile, “don’t worry. Nothing… we don’t have to do anything.”

 _But… I want to!_

All I can think about is the way that his lips feel, the way his mouth and skin tastes, and now… he’s smells clean like spearmint toothpaste and I feel like there’s a magnet in my chest that just keeps pulling me in closer and closer and it hurts to just stand there.

But… it’s a good hurt. I think.

Like… wanting.

I nod.

I gradually settle in, lying on my belly ( _with my junk nestled in one of the concave dips in the surface of the air mattress and I wonder for a second if it was designed to be used this way_ ) to be part of the on-going conversation.

He lays down next to me, close but not touching.

Isabela breaks the groups carefully constructed facade of cool for a split second by smiling at me, truly delighted that this has happened.

 _We are, technically, in bed._

Her smile actually bolsters my confidence. I slip past silent-panic at having him there, so close and so horizontal and so fucking warm and dressed in cotton and…

And instead I just feel that magnet tug.

When he talks, contributing his thoughts to the best-basement-stories discussion( _really... that's the filler conversation they come up with. Best Basement Stories_ ), I feel the vibration of his voice through the air mattress.

…

There is a nightlight. Which is fine.

What kills me is that it is shaped like a uterus. _Where does my mother find these things?_

The little glowing uterus (and fallopian tubes with tiny marble-sized ovaries) emits just enough light that the bodies in the basement are faintly outlined. I keep waking up at any kind of noise and have watched the four of them kind of shift around over the course of the night. Andy and Isabela are more or less stacked on top of each other together on one twin mattress and Merrill has scooted her's closer to Beth and propped her feet (in her ridiculous footie pajamas) on the futon, sharing her blankets warmth. Bethany still talks in her sleep, and I periodically hear Andy and Isabela giggling at the nonsense she mumbles.

I’m mostly awake in the dark. Still on my belly. My face was turned away from him, but I shift and turn and press my cheek into a cool stretch of pillow and now…

I can see his profile in the uterus-light. He’s on his back, arms folded across his chest like the lid of a sarcophagus.

 _His nose is just... worldly._

Oh, whatever. I know what I mean.

His eyes are closed.

Until the alarm on my watch goes off.

His eyes open fast enough that I doubt he was asleep at all and he looks at me and I am so very close to his face.

I didn’t realize it.

 _When did I scoot so close? I’m well past the center line of this air mattress._

He turns his head towards me, and I watch his eyelids close, like they're heavy, his eyelashes are dark and perfect, like ink, and soft like a fan brush.

“What time is it?” he asks, low, and the sound of his voice in the dark makes me hard… oh, god…

“Four. I have to go flip the bird.”

I feel him laugh, “What?”

“The… turkey. I have to go turn in right side up… so that the meat…” I think I’m awake, “gets… equal… you know, gravity… and, the brine…” my hand is moving through the dark, white and broad and glowing softly blue in the uterus-light. I know it’s mine, abstractly, but it doesn’t feel like mine until I feel the smooth warmth of his jaw in my palm.

 _What am I doing?_

He breathes out slowly, and I feel the muscle of his jaw move under his skin.

“Can I help?”

“It’s pretty much a one man job,” I smile.

His hair is so soft against my fingertips… and he has, like, no beard whatsoever. Nothing. He’s just… smooth. And warm. And…

“Oh,” he’s closer. He’s moving closer.

My hand is still on his jaw, and that’s how I know how close he is.

I’m not pulling him in. I’m very much _not_ doing that.

 _Oh I’m totally doing that._

These sheets smell like mom’s linen closet. I used to like to play in there in the dark. I’d shut the door and burrow into the quilts and blankets and sheets and she’d get so mad at me for messing everything up. But I loved it. In the dark it was like those sheets could have been anything, anywhere.

This feels like that.

I’m that kid again.

I want to mess up and burrow in and never, ever come back out.

His lips are warm and wet when I find them.

Like he just licked them.

And the toothpaste taste is still there but faint and it’s just him, _Fen_.

“Fen.”

“Hmm.”

He doesn’t move any further and I don’t pull.

Because, remember, remember we are moving slow.

In the dark.

His head is on my pillow.

But his body curves away from mine.

 _Remember_.

My brain remembers.

My body… well, it remembers but it has its own ideas too.

But I hold back, and the only place we touch is lips, and chins, noses.

Teeth.

Tongues.

My beard scrapes on his skin and it’s the loudest noise I’ve ever heard.

My phone buzzes a second alarm from the pocket of my balled up jeans above my head on the floor.

“Turkey,” I groan.

“I’m up. I’ll come with you.”

Who am I to say no?

So after we both get up ( _I hope that the darkness does a better job of hiding a hard-on than these pajama pants do_ ) he’s standing here in the garage in bare feet while I get up to my elbows in brine and flip a slippery cold naked turkey.

It’s the first time anyone’s ever watched me do it, and also the first time I realize how weird and hilariously gross the process is.

I laugh, and try to shake or blow a clump of fuzzy hair out of my eyes because I can’t use my briney hands.

And I feel his fingers on my face, pulling hair back, away.

I stop laughing.

“I really like you.”

I blurt it out.

But I don't regret it.

He nods, eyes darting beneath those thick eyelashes, “I…”

His eyes are dark, pupils enormous in the dark garage, and he searches my face for something.

My hands drip.

I reach past him for the towel I left on the hood of Mom’s car and wipe my hands dry.

He catches me as I pull back and kisses me, growling, “I like _you_.”

I can’t touch him with dead bird juice on my hands, so I just kind of hold my arms out at the side, but my heart is hammering and I know he can hear it because the garage is totally silent. Completely.

So quiet that I can hear footsteps in the kitchen on the other side of the door that separates the garage from the house.

 _No one else has a 4:00 obligation._

The garage is freezing and we're both barefoot, so, as much as it ruins the moment which feels unexpectedly significant, we head back inside.

That warm inviting air mattress is sounding better and better… as is warm water and vanilla scented hand soap to wash off the brine.

Sebastian is standing there, staring at a casserole dish of half a lasagna.

“Seb?” I say quietly.

 _Is he sleepwalking? And sleep eating?_

He turns and looks at me and without meaning to, I cringe.

No. He’s awake.

He looks awful.

“What are you doing up?”

“I thought…” he glances past me to Fen then shakes his head.

“Thought…?”

“Nevermind,” he says, eating a forkful of cold lasagna.

I wash my hands, letting the water get a little too hot.

I’m very aware of both of them, standing there behind me, on either side… like little good and evil angels, or… unknown and known, the future and the past.

 _God… the Past is looking wrecked._

Despite my better judgment, and my big stupid heart feels bad for him.

Worried.

“What’s going on?”

“Can’t sleep,” he says, curtly, eating more.

“Do you want to…” I shut off the sink with my elbow, “talk?”

He looks at me, and his eyes are a little red.

“No.”

A very Scottish reply.

“Okay… well.. uh… feel better,” I say it sincerely and dry my hands and walk towards Fen ( _Future_ ) and away from Seb ( _Past_ ).

I forget about Seb entirely once I’m back under the quilt in the uterus-lit basement, wrapped up in flannel clouds, breathing in that linen closet smell and falling asleep again next to Fen, me on my stomach, him on his back, and both of our faces turned towards each other.

 _It's been a long, long time since I got verbal confirmation that someone I like... liked me back._

And some how, even though I strongly suspected that he did like me, too, hearing it is just...

 _I smile._

 _And I'm asleep._


	32. Chapter 32

“Garrett.”

 _No._

 _I don’t want to get up._

“Garrett.”

 _I am so effing comfortable right now._

 _Why can’t you people just let me sleep._

“Gare-Bear, it’s Thanksgiving.”

I groan.

And when I start to turn, I stop.

I stop because there is a very warm weight against me.

And I never want to move again.

He’s awake too.

We aren’t wrapped around each other or anything, but our sleeping bodies kind of… rolled into each other in the center of the air mattress. Enough air’s gone out of the mattress that where we are together is a deep groove, the sides holding up closer together.

His head is level with my chest, though, and that’s…

 _Warm. Hot._

And Bethany…

Is there standing over us with two cups of coffee in her hands.

“Good morning, Sleepy Heads,” she says softly.

Fen rumbles what I think is a ‘ _Good morning_ ,’ back.

She smiles at me knowingly and turns around to set the coffee cups on the ping-pong table.

“Hey…”

I look down at him, and he scoots over a little, finger combing his hair into some semblance of what it usually looks like.

 _But it’s messy. So much messier than I’ve ever seen it before. I want to bury my face in it and take away his brush or comb of whatever he uses because this?_

 _I like this._

“Good morning,” he has creases on his cheek from the sheets and from my shirt.

“Mmhmm…”

 _I’m hard. Again._

I take a deep calming breath and smile at him.

He looks like he’s going to say something… but… doesn’t. Just looks.

Without glasses.

There’s one small window high on the wall in the basement, just at ground level and the morning sunlight comes in and just sets the green in his eyes on fire.

 _That’s my green._

 _The green I keep trying to find or make…_

 _I try to memorize it._

 _Can you memorize a color?_

“You didn’t toss and turn,” he says finally, narrowing his eyes at me and smirking.

“I guess I was comfortable.”

“Hmm…”

“Which one of us gets up first?” I ask, giving the sagging air mattress a testing bounce.

I hear Isabela make a kind of gasping yelp and look back at them just as she and Andy both roll off the edge of their air mattress, falling and laughing, hopelessly tangled in sheets and blankets.

Merrill hops over to them and starts trying to free them, as does Bethany but with less urgency.

Fen’s watching them too.

“You go first,” he says, very near my ear, “you’re bigger.”

 _I am._

 _Bigger._

 _I’m also very aware of the difference in the size of us._

 _And lying here, hard, I can’t help but wonder how we would fit together…_

Andy and Isabela are still laughing and Merrill is fussing over them…

And my baby sister is in the room.

And now is not the time to think about… _fitting_.

I get up, shifting myself in a way that I hope is subtle and turn, looking over my shoulder just as he’s getting up on the other side and doing the same thing.

…

True to my word, I wear my frilly apron to cook my turkey… and a selection of unintentionally somber vegan options for Seamus who shows up around 9:30 and is quickly put to work setting up the table.

Mom is beyond tickled. She had to put two leaves in the table she has so many people in her house. It’s, like, her favorite thing.

After getting the bird into the oven, I waited my turn to take a shower. I drank three cups of coffee and ate a half a croissant. Merrill and Bethany took over Mom’s bathroom, Andy and Isabela hopped in the downstairs guest bathroom (and, I suspect, were doing more than saving water by getting in together…) and I waited patiently for Fen to come out of the shower that had been mine, Carver’s and Bethany’s.

When he finds me, I can’t stop looking at his wet hair.

 _It’s heavy and pushed into roughly the right shape, but with just the faintest wave and, oh god help me a tiny little river of water that follows the course set by a drop that ran down the side of his neck and under his collar and I want to lick it—_

I look at his face.

 _Huh._

 _That’s an expression._

 _That’s… well it’s not quite a bad expression._

 _But it’s not a good one._

“What… what’s up?”

I stand up, feeling like a character in a movie who is just realizing that the bloodied doctor who’s come into the waiting room is not going to tell them that the surgery went well.

“Uhh…” he blinks at me, “Your, uh, friend…”

 _Oh, god._

“Which friend? The place is crawling with them.”

“Sebastian.”

 _I don't like this._

“Uh-huh…”

He frowns, but looks generally amused, which is a good thing, “He, uh, I think he just tried to, uh, kiss me.”

“Uh- _huh_.”

One dark eyebrow quirks, “It was… weird.”

“Yeah. Yeah! That’s…” _I need to tell him… why haven’t I told him?_ “He, uh… he’s kind of going through an identity crisis. Thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And… uh…” _Don’t be a pussy, Garrett!_ “He’s, um…”

I can’t.

Not right now.

I should have told him before… that Sebastian is, er… was the one guy. _The one guy ever, guy._

 _But it would have been weird!_

Well, it’s a lot weirder now.

“What did he do? Are you…”

He laughs dryly, and rubs water from his neck with his hand, “I’m fine. It was just… unexpected. And unwelcome.”

I sigh.

 _Tell him._

“Sorry!”

“It’s… not your fault.”

 _Yes it is._

“I’m… I’ll go talk to him,” I say, madly reaching out to wipe away a drop of water from the bottom of his ear without realizing it.

He blinks fast, and doesn’t pull away, but goes kind of rigid.

But his eyes don’t leave my face.

“Can you, uh,” I pull my hand back and rub my wet fingers together, “uh, keep an eye on the sweet potatoes?”

“Sure.”

“Just don’t let any meat get in there… or butter… anything from an animal.”

He smirks, “I understand veganism.”

I don’t want to deal with Sebastian right now… and I’ve got a cold lump in my gut, but I smile back at him.

…

Sebastian is sitting on my bed with his hands folded and his head bowed.

Is he praying?!

“Hey. We need to talk.”

I close the door behind me.

 _I’m pissed._

I generally don’t get pissed.

I’m generally a very convivial type.

But... I didn’t realize how _fucking_ pissed I was until right now.

 _He’s gone after not one, but two of my boyfriends…_

 _Well, okay, technically neither of them is my boyfriend._

But… that’s not the point! So far as he knows they both are.

Overlapping, sure, but…

 _Focus._

 _Pissed off!_

He looks up at me.

“You’re different,” he says, and it’s a little accusatory.

My defenses are up.

 _I wish I wasn’t wearing pajama pants… but at least I left the apron in the kitchen._

“What are you doing, Sebastian?”

“You’re with both of them? Is that…” I wish the blinds were open… it’s a little noir in here for my tastes, “…what you do now? You used to be, different. Just with me. And now you can…” he shakes his head, “and now you’re with everyone but me.”

My jaw is slack.

“What?”

“Why them and not me?”

“ _WHAT?_ ”

He stands up.

“I came back here for you, Garrett. Because you made me happy… we were happy. And--”

“ _Fuck_ you! You broke my fucking heart!”

Well, there it is.

Done.

And loud enough that I imagine they’ve all heard me in the living room.

 _Perfect._

He stares at me, stunned.

It’s happening…

“You know what? That’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that. I didn’t want to admit it, so I didn’t for three years. But… no, you’d been breaking my heart before that. Slowly. Over time. By… fucking whoever, lying to me about it--”

“Garrett--”

“I was miserable! I was hurt,” _oh god, I can’t stop it_ “and scared that you were going to catch something… that I’d catch something from you. You used to make fun of me for being a hypochondriac… but I’m not! I’ve never been a hypochondriac. I was only like that with you!

“The best thing that ever happened to me was you finding _God_. Because you chose Him over me and I finally… I stopped…" I want to barf "I couldn’t keep making up excuses anymore.”

“And you say you came back here for me?” I shake my head, “Is that why you slept with Andy? In _my_ bed? Is that why you…” _oh, I’m so pissed… and I have adrenaline and I don’t know what to do with it_ , “If you came back for me, why are you trying to fuck people I care about?”

“I…” he’s shaking, “I _wanted_ you. But you didn’t want _me_ back.”

“And that’s why--”

“You… share. You and Andy and… he’s with that woman, and you. And you’re… you’re with him and--”

“Jesus Christ, Sebastian!”

He’s on me.

I feel like I know _want_.

“You’re with them… and not me?”

I could write a book on want.

This is all _want_.

On one side.

And when my back hits the door, I actually hear a gasp on the other side.

 _Perfect. I wonder if they’re all out there._

He doesn’t kiss me.

But he _wants_ to.

Again, like I said, I know want.

“Back off,” I say, low and about as threatening as I can manage.

 _I wonder how threatening that actually is._

 _I mean… I’m big. And filled with indignant rage… but still…_

“What changed?”

“Sebastian… Back. Off.”

He looks at me.

He lets go of me and steps backwards into the room.

I push off from the door.

Only to be hit in the back by it a second later.

Carver.

“Okay, that’s it!”

I come around the doorway.

Sebastian and I are both staring at him.

Carver is surprisingly threatening. Legitimately.

 _I suddenly understand the no-sleeves thing._

“Carver?”

He doesn’t look at me.

“You,” he points at Sebastian who is about eye to eye with him, “Outside.”

I can smell the testosterone.

I’m invisible to both of them.

I look into the hallway.

Yup. Just like I thought. The gang’s all there.

Jesus… where’s Fen? I don’t see him.

 _Fuck!_

“Fuck!”

No one pays attention to me.

“You want to… fight?”

Sebastian’s stepping towards Carver slowly.

He nods.

“Yeah. I do.”

 _This is absurd!_

“This is--”

“Why?!”

 _Please don’t say to defend my honor, Carver. Even if that is the case… that’s so emasculating… sweet, but emasculating…_

 _I need to get out of this room and find Fen and--_

The sound of a fist meeting a face doesn’t actually sound anything like what you’d think it would.

I’ve never been in a fight.

Apparently both of them have though.

 _They seem to know what they're doing._

Carver’s bouncing on his feet and waiting for Sebastian to reel back at him.

“Stop!”

Mom’s leaning into the doorway.

I can’t move.

Except that I need to.

“Andy, get in there!” I hear from the hall.

“No! No--” Mom steps into the room.

Sebastian hits Carver.

 _This is really happening?!_

I get in between them, putting myself in front of Sebastian and holding him back… because I feel marginally more confident that Carver wouldn’t hit me. I guess.

And then Andy’s there, pulling Carver back with an arm around his chest.

This is not real life.

Mom gets in front of Carver.

“You. Room. Now.”

Andy lets him go, and he shakes himself off like a dog and with a glare at Sebastian tromps out of the room.

And then there was Sebastian.

My mother turns dove-grey eyes towards him.

“I am so _disappointed_.”

 _Oh! That is the worst. Cold, Mom!_

“And you,” she looks at me, “you didn’t tell me any of that.”

 _She’s disappointed in me to._

His lip is bleeding.

I realize I’m holding him against myself and immediately push him away.

“I think it might be best if you go,” she says to him. She doesn’t sound angry… in fact, she sounds unnervingly calm. Like she thinks this is really for the best. Observational.

“Where will I go?” he asks.

And I feel sorry for him. For, like, a second.

“I don’t know,” she says, still calm, “but you’ll figure that out.”

She sighs deeply and turns, seeing the five eager faces, eyes wide. Andy's breathing hard, and the rest are crowded together in the hallway, rubbernecking.

She shoos them, “Go on!”

They hesitate, but slowly turn and start to go. I follow.

“We need to talk, Garrett Hawke,” she says as I pass, “later.”

...

“Well that’s a cluster-fuck,” Andy says sympathetically, falling into step by me.

“Where’s Fen?”

“He was in the kitchen,” he says.

He’s not there.

 _FUCKING SEBASTIAN VAEL! Life Ruiner!_

 _Oh… wait…_

I smell smoke.

He’s sitting on the back patio smoking. Bradley is sitting next to him watching birds fly overhead.

 _Thank god!_

I open the door and step out.

He doesn’t turn around.

A puff of smoke goes up.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“Pretty much all of it,” he answers, still facing forward.

I stare at his back, which is curved forward.

“I didn’t know you were…” he inhales, “That you and Andy…”

“Oh! No! We’re not… never…”

“Hmm…” he exhales.

“No… he… Sebastian thought that we were. I just… I didn’t correct him.”

He makes a non-committal noise in his throat, “And Sebastian…?”

“Is my ex. Yeah.”

“The one and only?” he sounds tired.

 _I hate this._

“Yes.”

We’re both quiet for a while.

He finishes his cigarette.

“I hate lying, Hawke.”

That’s the first time he’s ever called me that.

“I do, too.”

He looks at me over his shoulder.

“I do it, sometimes, but I hate it.”

I step forward, “You lie?”

“Everybody does,” he frowns.

I feel jittery and sick from the adrenaline, and I sit down next to him.

Bradley gets up and walks over, wedging his head in my lap.

My hands are shaking.

“Here’s the truth,” I say, looking at Mom’s gazebo, “I was never with anyone before Sebastian. We were together for about six years. He cheated on me… a lot. I never did. He dumped me for The Church and I didn’t see him for three years until… until about twenty four days ago. And he’s a mess. And I don’t feel anything for him… except maybe second hand embarrassment and pity and… some responsibility because, I mean, I did care… I did love him.”

"And he did... sleep with Andy. Thinking that, that he was..." _you_ "Who I was interested in... and so... when he... with you? I..."

He nods, and looks down at his feet.

“And as far as Andy goes… I have never slept with him. He kissed me once,” his eyebrows go up, “but it lasted about five seconds and…” I laugh, nervously, “and he did it so that I wouldn’t be as nervous as I was to… kiss you. That night. On Halloween.”

He's quiet, “You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“I know," I swallow and tell the truth, again, "I wanted to.”

“Hmm.”

He shifts his weight, leaning towards me, and pulls out his wallet.

It’s a battered old leather thing that looks like it’s about ready to crumble.

He holds it in his hands, staring at it thoughtfully for a minute.

Then he hands it to me.

It’s warm from his body.

I don’t open it.

“What…”

“Who I am? That’s in there. Or, at least… the paper trail of who I am.”

 _Leto._

He just handed _Leto_ to me.

I open it up. It’s very tidy but very full.

His driver’s license is there behind a tiny cracked window of semi-transparent plastic.

 _Leto Aucoin._

 _Organ Donor_

 _5’7”_

 _165 lbs_

 _Born: 2/14/1980_

 _Eyes: Green_

 _Hair:_

“Your hair is black!”

He shifts, spreading his feet further apart and laughing quietly, “ _That’s_ what you noticed?”

“Well…” I look at him, “I already… I mean… I knew about the name.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, kind of.” I explain. About Whole Foods... “I don’t know… why.”

There’s the sound of a door slamming inside and we both turn to look.

 _Oh, that._

“Crap.”

I look at his driver license again, and smooth out the plastic with my thumb.

He’s younger in the picture. And his hair is black and short.

And… he’s so different from the man sitting next to me.

“I…” he presses his elbows together between his thighs, “You’re the first person I want to tell,” he smiles at me, and I see the faint wrinkles at the corners of his eyes for the first time, “but maybe you should go see what’s happening in there.”

 _I’m torn._

 _I want to…_

 _I should._

 _But…_

“Please don’t disappear.”

I’m scared that he will.

I’m holding his wallet in my hands.

And I feel like if I give it back, he’ll run.

“I won’t.”


	33. Chapter 33

I feel raw.

Perforated.

 _I want to cry._

I feel like I need to know where everyone is. At all times. That we’re all water spiders on the surface and everything is fragile and if one of them slips now we’re all going under.

 _I’ll cry later._

“Carve?”

I knock on his door and it opens a little.

He’s sitting on his bed with a bag of frozen peas draped over his fist.

Mom’s been here.

“Hey.”

“Mmph,” he says, looking up at me.

“I…” I close the door, “You okay?”

He shrugs.

“Lemme see?”

He lifts the peas off his hand. His knuckles are red and puffy and a little scraped.

“Does that hurt?”

“Have you ever punched someone in the face?”

“You know I haven’t.”

“It hurts,” he resituates his peas, “but I’ll live.”

I bite my lip, and then sit on his bed.

“Is Mom livid with you?”

He laughs, then sniffs and rolls his shoulders in a manly like fashion, “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why is she livid with me? Because I punched a man in her house on Thanksgiving--”

“No…” the back of my head hurts, “why did you…”

“Punch Sebastian in the face?” his eyebrows shoot up and he looks at me like I’m a moron, “Because he needed a punch in the face.”

I look at him directly. Carver has always been kind of a mystery to me. I get Bethany. She and I are cut out of the same stuff… but Carver?

I feel like I’m meeting him for the first time.

I mean, I’ve known him every day of his life.

But… I’m meeting him today.

Right now.

“Sometimes,” he says to me, slowly so that I’ll understand, “people are really stupid. And the only way to snap them out of it, is to punch them directly in the hard parts of the faces.”

I laugh, “So it was for his benefit?”

“Partly, yeah,” he pushes the peas around inside the bag, redistributing them more evenly, “And for you. And for Mom. Because that’s fucked up.”

“Yeah,” I nod, “That is fucked up.”

“I like Seb,” he says, “I think he’s a nice guy. I’ve always liked him.”

Carver and Bethany met Seb for the first time when they were ten. He has known him, then, for just about half his life.

“But he’s got problems.”

I nod in agreement and stare dumbly at my unbruised knuckles.

“You know what Dad told me?”

Carver hardly ever talks about Dad.

“What?”

“About… people. You meet people when you’re supposed to meet them. And, that… sometimes people find you when they need to… and that it’s never a mistake. And you… even if you hate them, if they turn out to be a real fuck up--”

“Dad did not say ‘fuck up,’” I smile.

“No. He said some weird little English version of ‘fuck up’ that sounds less offensive to us but is actually way more offensive,” he smirks, “but… even if they end up being a fuck up and you hate them and you feel like your life would have been better if you hadn’t met them… you were always going to. And you needed to. And that all the fuck ups you meet just, make you who you need to be for the person that you’ll meet eventually who… isn’t a fuck up.”

“Dad told you this?” I look at him sitting there, cross-legged, with his box of porn spilling out onto the bed next to him… and he’s, like, a sage. Spouting wisdom that I’ve yet to grasp in twenty-seven years of living.

He’s like a porn-strewn Siddhartha.

“Yeah. He explained where babies came from and then, that.”

“Wise man.”

He makes a quiet agreeing sound in his throat.

“Have you ever been in love?”

He grimaces at me, “Uh, yeah.”

“Why don’t I know about this!”

“Because… I’m not you? Or Bethany.”

“Ouch.”

He laughs.

“I think he’d be really proud of you, Carver.”

“Yeah?” he mulls this over, “He also taught me how to throw a punch, so…” he smiles, “Yeah, maybe.”

…

Sebastian is… gone.

Which is bizarre.

And it feels like… _I don’t know_.

I’d say it felt like having a limb chopped off, but that’s giving him too much credit. He wasn’t a limb of mine any more.

Mom is sequestered in her room.

I am pleased to discover that everyone else (Bethany, Seamus and the assembled Wingmen) is in the kitchen, working away under the supervision of Isabela who actually really has a knack for… supervising.

They make me want to cry. Again.

They’re in there like friendly woodland creatures in a Disney movie, cheerfully cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

I kind of loom in the doorway watching them for a minute.

Fen hasn’t come inside.

He’s still sitting on the patio, smoking another cigarette.

But at least he hasn’t run away.

Bradley is still beside him.

Bethany stops what she’s doing when she sees me and comes over, forcing me to bend my head low enough for her to look at it.

“What are you going?” I say, looking at her feet.

“Your bedroom door is cracked,” she says, parting my hair with her fingers, “He slammed you into it really hard. Is your head broken?”

“No, I don’t think so!”

She prods for a little bit.

“Oww!”

Okay… there is a lump.

"You're fine," she sighs, then kisses the lump briskly and lets me go.

“It had to happen, Gare-Bear,” she says, “You need to talk to Mom.”

“I know…”

She gives me a look and then goes back over to join Merrill in the making of biscuits.

Andy looks up at me from an enormous pot of mashed potatoes.

“Will you…” my throat sounds all tight and thick and weird, and I’m staring at Fen’s curved back through the window.

Andy looks at the window.

“I don’t think he’s going to make a run for it, Garrett,” he says very softly, “If he was going to, I think he’d already have done it.”

He gives me an encouraging smile.

It helps, a little.

I squeeze his arm and he, in return, taps a finger against my friendship bracelet with a goofy little smile.

…

I seek out Mom.

It feels like a quest.

 _I should have downed the mimosa that Isabela offered me. For fortification._

She’s in her room, sitting at the desk under the window.

It’s a stained-glass window. She used to make them all the time, claiming that it was her one artistic inclination.

It’s beautiful.

Falling autumn leaves.

I wish she still made them…

“Mom?”

She looks over her shoulder at me.

And sighs.

A Mom-sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

I mean it.

“Sweetheart…” she shakes her head, “I’m so _pissed_ at you.”

I sit on the trunk at the end of her bed, “I know…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I’m losing that fight to not cry.

But I guess if you’re going to cry in front of anyone, it’s okay if it’s your own mother, right?

 _Who am I kidding? I cry all the time._

 _I’ve cried during every Pixar movie._

 _In the theater._

 _Even Cars._

“Because I let it go on for so long. It was…” I shrug and keep my shoulders up, “my fault. And… I didn’t think…”

“Hey,” she gets up and comes in front of me, kneeling down and looking up at my face, “I just wish I’d known so that I could have eviscerated that little twat years ago.”

I laugh and cry at the same time.

I’m gross.

And still wearing pajamas.

And I’m sweaty.

“Garrett,” I look at her, “I love that you have such a big heart. I’ve always been so proud of your capacity to just… _love_ , and your Dad was too… but we also worried about you because of that big heart. It just… it hurts me to know that someone,” she sighs, “Well… I wish I’d known.”

“I’m sorry,” I wipe my face with my hand.

“You’re okay?”

“Huh?”

She looks at me analytically, “You said… you were worried about catching--”

“Mom!” I exhale, and try to rein it in, “Yes. I’m fine. I’m… perfectly healthy.”

“When your dad and I were young, it was different. Anything you might catch you could cure with an antibiotic. So… while you didn’t especially want to get syphilis…” she smiles, mischievous, “Your Dad had syphilis once.”

I explode; I laugh so hard I can’t breathe.

“What?! Why are you telling me this?!”

She’s laughing too, “He gave it to me!”

“What?! That’s hor-horible!”

She’s wiping tears from her eyes, “It brought us closer together! He came up to me one day and said,” she always does his accent and inflection so perfectly, “ _‘Leandra, love. I have to tell you…’_ We went to the free clinic together! Ahh!”

The laugh turns into a giggle and then starts to ebb all together.

After a minute she looks up at me, patting my leg, “Hey, help me up.”

I offer her my hands and stand up, pulling her with me.

Her knees crack and pop.

She hugs me around the middle and I hug her back.

I look over the top of her head. In her walk-in closet, she still has a few of Dad’s things hanging up. Shirts. His jacket. I really want to go over there and bury my face in the jacket and see if it still smells like him.

“More importantly,” she says, “your heart is okay?”

I nod.

“It’s good, Mom.”

“Is Fen still here?”

I nod.

“That’s good, Sweetheart,” she pats my back.

…

As it turns out, my mother gave Sebastian an undisclosed amount of money, to be paid back as soon as possible, and set him off on foot to the Greyhound station.

I…

I don’t know.

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

Who am I?

I took a two minute shower ( _I maybe cried a little, in a really manly way_ ) and put on real pants and now… I’m in my car, about ten minutes from the house, and I see him there on the side of the road walking with his backpack on.

What am I doing?

I pull next to the curb.

He stops walking and glares at me through the car window.

“Get in.”

He doesn’t for a second. Just stands there, hating me.

But he gives in.

“What?”

He’s sitting there in the passenger seat staring forward.

I pull away from the curb and drive to the only place I can think of.

But Dairy Queen is closed.

We sit on two tables outside far away from each other and don’t say anything for a long time.

“I need an ending to _this_. And _that_ can’t be it.”

He looks at me, “Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

Closure. I don’t think I’m going to get any… but I need to try.

“You’re a fucking mess.”

He laughs and rubs his jaw, “No shit?”

“That? What the hell was that?”

He thinks for a minute, then says with clarity, “I think that was what they call rock bottom.”

I laugh, bitterly, “I think you’re right.”

There is no affection here.

Bethany had called me a good many horrible names when I left the house, saying that I needed to do this. I wouldn’t be long.

And I wouldn’t be.

But I also wasn’t finished, here.

With him.

Bethany was pissed, but she said she’d cover for me anyway.

And I trust her to do so… because Bethany is a great liar when she wants to be.

 _Unless she was lying to me about lying for me._

 _Dammit._

I'm going to choose to believe that everyone else thinks I’m just out, clearing my head.

And I am.

“I’m…” he sniffs, and exhales slowly, “I’m sorry.”

“You know, I’ve heard that before…”

He glances at me, then away, “I know.”

“This?” I gesture back and forth in the space between us, “this is done.”

It really is.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to see you again.”

He nods, “I understand.”

“And…” I sigh, “I hope that you figure out what you’re looking for.”

His mouth tightens, “Let me ask you this… what do you think I should do?”

“What?”

“Should I… should I go back to the church? Or… should I go back to my…”

He swallows.

“Your family?”

He nods.

 _His sister died almost a decade ago and he’s never really dealt with it._

Or with them.

“It shouldn’t be my call, Sebastian.”

He doesn’t look at me, “I know. Just… your opinion?”

“Go back to your family.”

He nods.

“Figure that shit out.”

He laughs unhappily.

“And then… if you want to be chaste, and religious, do that. If you want to be… not chaste, gay or, or… whatever… do that. Just…”

I stand up.

With keys in my hand.

I’m starving.

And there’s turkey at home.

The Greyhound station is near here.

I’m done.

This is as much closure as I’m going to get.

And I got it.

 _I suddenly feel as enlightened as an eighteen-year-old pornography-strewn Siddhartha._

I met him when I needed to.

And he met me when he needed to.

It was always going to be like this.

Because we needed each other.

And now we don’t.

“Goodbye, Sebastian.”

“Goodbye, Garrett.”

…

“This is amazing!”

I’m going to explode.

I’ve eaten so much… but I can’t stop.

“Andy, pass me the gravy. Who made the gravy?”

He passes me the gravy, which is amazing, “Merrill did.”

“Merrill!” I pour liberally, “That’s it. You’re the Gravy Master.”

“Oh, stop it,” she waves her hand at me but smiles like the Cheshire Cat.

When I came home, dinner was on the table.

Candles were lit and wine was being poured and it was just… perfect.

They are magical woodland creatures, these friends of mine.

 _Andy is a fox._

 _And Isabela… she’s a sexy lady beaver._

 _Er… not, no… not like that… like, an actual beaver._

 _Merrill is a bunny._

 _Seamus is a porcupine._

 _And Bethany? Bethany’s a deer._

We have established that Fen is a wolf.

Incidentally, I also came home to a house full of friends and family who had gathered together and smoked a healthy amount of pot.

Everyone.

Including Mom.

Seamus, who I no longer have any doubts about whatsoever besides the whole vegan thing and the hair… had just an enormous amount of very expensive weed in his backpack.

And even though everyone was already very comfortably high when I arrived, there was more than enough left for me.

It was a Thanksgiving miracle.

God bless Seamus Dumar.

God bless us, everyone.

“This is,” I wash down an absolutely perfect mouthful of food with some sparkling water (which is also just incredibly delicious), “the best meal I have ever eaten!” I say this magnanimously, “I feel like Henry the Eighth!”

Andy is the first to start laughing at that.

Sitting across from me, he throws his head back and can’t stop.

That Andy has a great and infectious laugh.

And that great laugh kicks off a chain reaction around the table.

It’s unstoppable.

“Ugh!” Isabela laughs, grabbing Andy’s arm with one hand and her stomach with the other, “I’m so full!”

I look at Fen, who is sitting next to me, his elbows on the table on either side of his cleared plate, his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

And my heart, which has been doing better and better, feels really, really good.

I realize that my hand is resting on his thigh only when he drops the arm closest to me and turns his face toward me, cheek resting on his hand, the other arm still propped on the table.

No one else sees this.

No one else knows.

They’re talking and laughing and eating.

They don’t see the way he tries, and fails, to hold back a smile.

“I think!” Mom is wiping her eyes, and she clears her throat, “I think that this had the potential to be our worst Thanksgiving… but…” she stands up and pours more wine into Andy’s glass and her own, “I’m going to do a toast… refill your glasses!”

Everyone reaches for bottles and starts pouring.

Fen reaches for a bottle, refilling both our glasses.

I begrudgingly move my own hand away, and pick up my glass.

“Okay,” she looks at everyone, individually, “but against all odds, it has been one of the best I’ve ever had. And. I think that’s because of all the fabulous friends who have joined us. I am thankful for you all,” she’s drunk and high and it shouldn’t be so adorable but it really is, “and… I am thankful for ganja.”

Everyone laughs and a few of us applaud, throwing out hearty ' _Here-here's!_ '.

She raises her glass, “To friends and ganja!”

It’s ridiculous.

But it’s also perfect.

It's Thanksgiving.

…

No one is in a state to drive anywhere after that.

And it’s foggy as hell again.

We put away leftovers and load up the dishwasher and exhaustion hits not long after that.

And the house, and everyone in it, finally settles by around midnight.

Seamus stays over after calling home to say that it was just too foggy to send a driver out, and falls asleep on the futon downstairs, which is where everyone else is now, in some hodgepodge assembly of sleeping.

Mom asked me if I wanted her to smudge my room.

Here’s the thing about my mom; she’s a hippie. Occasionally, I think she forgets that she is a hippie. However, a little bit a weed and she really, really remembers.

She lit the little sage stick and smudged my room while Fen and I leaned in the hallway watching her.

She had gone in there after our conversation, when I left the house to 'clear my head,' and cleaned the room, swapped out the bedding and opened up the windows.

When she’s done smudging and announces that the negative energy had been sufficiently cleared out, I peek in. It does feel more like my room, I’ll give her that.

She kisses my cheek, “Good night, sweetheart. Happy Thanksgiving.”

She touches Fen’s forearm lightly and says the same thing to him before taking her sage and going back into her room.

We go in together.

I sit in the computer chair, and he sits cross-legged on my bed.

I smile at him, feeling suddenly really sleepy and stretch my legs out so that my heels rest on the edge of the mattress.

“What a day,” I shake my head.

He grins crookedly and dips his head, “Yeah.”

I rub the lump on the back of my head absently.

“I think I want to move the furniture around in here?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

I do.

I don’t know why.

I don’t know why I do anything anymore.

He stands up, unfolding his legs and surveys the room.

It’s pretty sparse. A lot of the really embarrassing teenage stuff is gone packed away in some nook in the attic. My books are still here. I see _Lord of the Rings_ there and I remember the feeling of that particular book in my hands like a muscle memory.

He helps me push the furniture around, so that the bed is against the opposite wall, the desk under the window, and it does feel better.

Different.

I sit at the foot on the bed, and he sits next to me.

He has an artfully rolled joint between his fingers.

And that just sounds great.

He smokes first, and then turns to me, asking very quietly in a voice full of literal and figurative smoke, “Do you want me to shotgun you?”

 _Yes, I absolutely do._

 _I have never even thought of anything that I want more than I want that right now._

“Yes.”

He inhales and then turns to me. I dip my head, my mouth level to his, close but not touching, and as he breathes out I breathe in, deep; I pull him and the smoke into my lungs and I hold it all there.

 _And I know that we came in here to talk._

 _Because we have things to talk about._

 _We really do._

 _But that?_

I exhale.

 _That was one of the most intimate things that has ever happened in my life._

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“Sleep with me.”

He looks at me, blinking slowly, “What?”

“Not… I just mean,” I shake my head, “Just sleep.”

“Do you want to...” he puts out the end of the joint, “talk?”

“I do.”

“But not right now?” he smiles.

“I’m… it’s been a long, long day.”

“It has been, yeah.”

“I’m not… I’m not all present right now.”

“Yeah, I’m not either.”

“I am…” so sorry about everything “I’m so glad you didn’t leave.”

He laughs, and coughs into his hand, “A couple of years ago, I would have.”

“Yeah?”

He nods, “But now?” he shrugs, “I’m older and wiser, I guess.”

I think you’re brave.

“I’m glad!”

“Hmm.”

“So… you’re… Leto Aucoin.”

It sounds so strange and so feels so good to say.

His jaw tightens but quickly relaxes, “Yes.”

“Can I…” I lean forward, “Can I see it again?”

He nods, and after a second pulls his wallet out of his back pocket.

He opens it up and pulls the driver’s license free and passes it to me me held between two fingers.

“You want to see mine?” I take it.

He laughs, “Sure.”

I pull my own wallet out of my pocket and hand it to him.

He looks at me and opens it up. It is stuffed with old unimportant receipts and movie ticket stubs and business cards for people I don’t remember meeting or dentists I don’t go to.

He slides my driver’s license out with his thumb and closes my wallet, setting it on the bed behind him.

He laughs softly, "Your birthday is December 24th?"

"Christmas Eve. Yeah."

I look at my picture, which is ancient; I’m sixteen and ridiculous in that picture.

 _Why am I wearing so many necklaces?!_

“Not very recent,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs.

“Neither is yours.”

“No,” he glances at his own picture in my hands, “I get a lot of double takes, but, I don’t really get carded anymore.”

“You do have white hair.”

“I do.”

I look at younger Fen in the picture. He still has the tattoos, I can see them on his chin, and on his neck. But his hair is totally black and his face is narrower, sharper.

“It went white when I was twenty-five. Over the course of a year.”

“I like it.”

“Twenty-five was a rough year.”

“Were you…” he looks at me, and I still feel him in my lungs, “were you _Fen_ or _Leto_ then?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, “I was Fen. I tried to be Leto, after… for a while… but…” he shakes his head, “you can’t go home again.”

“I don’t…”

He licks his lips, lightly bending my license in his hands, “I grew up Leto Aucoin. The man I… dated, my…” he clears his throat, “he gave me a different name.”

“Fen.”

He nods.

“So… that was my name. And when I came here, time had gone by and... I'd traveled. I thought I’d try… maybe… maybe I’d go by Leto again. I tried it,” he narrows his eyes, and he doesn’t sound sad… just… contemplative, “but I wasn’t Leto. For better or worse, I’m not him anymore. Except for, you know, legally.”

My brain tries to hold on to this, “He… renamed you?”

He nods.

I don’t get it.

I don’t understand.

“It’s a long story. I will tell you. But not tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We’re both sitting there at the foot of my bed, still holding each other's licenses.

“I want to sleep with you.”

My whole body clenches involuntarily, every muscle I have.

He smiles at me, just cheeky enough that I know he knows what that statement did to me.

“Just sleep.”

“Uh-huh,” my mouth is completely dry, “right! Yes.”

I lend him another set of old clothes to sleep in. He changes in the bathroom while I change in my room.

Part of me thinks this is a dangerous game we’re playing, sleeping in an actual bed together, in an actual bedroom without chaperones… but the other part of me is so very comfortable when my body hits the mattress and the bed is warm and smells like Tide and me and Fen and weed that I start to almost immediately sink into blissful unconsciousness like a stone and I don’t care what that first part thinks.

I am informed in the morning that I didn't toss or turn that night either.


	34. Chapter 34

When I shifted just a little, he woke up. Immediately.

It was still dark. Pre-dawn. He mumbled with a sleepily smile that I am a liar; I didn’t toss and turn.

Then, much to my surprise, he fell asleep again, flat on his back with his arms crossed (that’s how he sleeps… really. It boggles my stomach-sleeper mind).

The house is still quiet. Still. It’s early, and my work-set internal alarm clock is fully engaged. Dawn happens gradually.

I have today off, though, thank God.

Meanwhile, despite my exhaustion (or maybe because of it), I’m wide awake.

 _I’m not sorry though._

 _I’m not sorry to still be awake._

 _Because I can…_

I smile, and cover my mouth out of habit, even though the only person in the room with me is 100 percent asleep.

I’m being such a creeper right now.

Watching him sleep?

 _Who does that?!_

Apparently I do.

Details that I never noticed are just there in that amazingly clear early-early-morning light.

I see his smooth lines.

But… not, not the tattoos.

To be honest, I don’t even see them really, unless I’m looking for them.

I just see him.

The lines of him.

The narrow slope of his cheekbone.

The deep, deliberate creases under his eyes.

The thick curve of his bottom lip.

An almost invisible hairline scar where his throat meets his shoulder.

Skin.

Clavicle.

The smooth knots of his knuckles, the valleys between them… this strangely sexual detail that of course I’d never see when he’s awake because his hands are always moving or buried in pockets or…

I want to crawl over and kiss the dip between his first and second knuckle.

I want that.

Would that be too weird?

Yeah. I think it would be.

I have not yet achieved the go-ahead for I’m going to wake you up in my mom’s house my making out with your hand from him.

I don’t want to be rude… and jumping to that seems…

Rude.

I close my eyes and just play it out in my mind instead…

 _I hold myself over him._

 _Careful._

 _Cautious._

 _I kiss, there, my nose between and against his fingers._

 _And the skin between those two broad, round bones is soft, impossibly smooth and I’d feel all of that, because I feel like my lips have never been this sensitive before._

 _Like I've spontaneously grown new nerves and I feel everything more._

 _I open my mouth, and when I taste him with the tip of my tongue, he flexes, curling his fingers into his palm and open up that space more._

 _Not a fist, an invitation--_

He grunts quietly and shifts and I feel like he caught me perving on his hand and keep my eyes shut and pretend to be asleep, just in case.

I’m exhausted but fucking happy as I listen to him breathe and…

And I fall asleep again and don’t wake up until around 11:30.

But I feel like I just closed my eyes to fake being asleep for a second!

I open my eyes. Fen’s gone.

I drag myself over to the side of the bed that my brain optimistically and automatically proclaims his side and bury my face in the pillow he used (now, his pillow).

And I breathe in the smell of him, his head, his skin, his hair.

And he opens the door, fully dressed.

“Uh..” let’s pretend I’m not clutching your pillow to my face and, _oh god, was I groaning?_ “G’morning.”

I try to play this off as a stretch. I yawn like a cartoon character.

He smirks.

“They sent me in with coffee,” he sets one of mom’s turkey-shaped ceramic mugs on the nightstand, “and to make sure you hadn’t died in your sleep.”

“No, no… I’m alive,” I reach for the mug, “just… worn out.”

“Hmm.”

I sip, “Sorry that I…” _slept-in and left you to the experience of a morning with my family without me there_ “uh…”

“It’s fine. Your, uh… Bethany’s up. She’s been a good, umm…” he smiles, “liaison.”

I laugh. _God bless you, Bethany._

“And the others?”

“Work. They’re gone.”

“Ahh,” I’m Wingmanless.

When he sits on the edge of the bed, I don’t care that I'm flying without supervision.

“I, uh…”

I stretch out and set down the turkey.

“I should probably get home. Soon. You know. Change my clothes.” He smiles.

“Oh, yeah! Shit! I’m sorry,” I throw off the covers and roll out of bed, “I’m your ride! I’m…”

 _Thoughtless! I’ve stranded him here... with my family._

I grab my jeans and discarded black sweater.

I mean, I guess if he really needed to, he could have gotten a ride with Andy or Bela or--

 _Wow, crap, it’s cold this morning._

 _And…_

 _Oh, god._

I pulled off the t-shirt I slept in without thinking clearly and feel really, incredibly exposed in the three or four seconds it takes to pull the sweater over my head.

He’s watching me and his eyes are dark.

Hands on the bed by his hips.

Fingers curled in towards his palms and I can’t see anything except the valleys between his knuckles.

I’m holding my jeans in my hand.

His dark eyes find mine.

“Sorry.”

I shake my head, “No… uh…”

He looks away, at my bookshelf, with great focus.

“You, uh…” he clears his throat as I really quickly drop the sweatpants and hop into an unwelcoming pair of jeans that are holding onto the cold from the floor really well.

I zip up.

He looks over his shoulder at me.

I’m totally dressed, but I feel myself blush.

He smiles.

 _I guess that's how this works, right?_

 _I'm experiencing a moment of clarity._

 _You forget._

 _And you strip something off, and they see you... and..._

 _I mean, not just physically._

 _You forget and you strip something off emotionally._

 _And they see you._

 _I want to know._

 _I want to see, too._

I smile back.

One piece of clothing at a time.

I think that's just how this is going to work.

…

I drop him off and have every intention of going home and having a wank and taking a shower and then sitting alone with my thoughts for a while, but Bethany calls me and my plans change.

I do go home, though, to change and because, seriously, if I don’t do something about this soon I’m going to go berserker… and nobody needs that.

So, post shower and wank and in a fresh set of clothes and a clearer head and balls that don't ache, I go back to Mom’s.

We watch Muppet Treasure Island and eat turkey sandwiches.

Or… Carver and Seamus and I watch _Muppet Treasure Island_ and stuff ourselves sick while Bethany and Mom stare at me expectantly.

Like I’m just going to tell them everything.

Later, after a not-so-covert caucus in the kitchen, Bethany asks me if I’ll give Seamus a ride home.

I do. She naturally tags along.

I also bring Bradley.

And after we drop off Seamus at the gates of his family’s estate (not a house, an estate that makes mom’s place look like a hovel) she nonchalantly asks me if we can go to the park.

Sneaky, Bethany, trying to get the dirt.

We sit on the bridge over the pond and dangle out feet into the air.

“So… you slept together?”

There are enormous koi in this pond and Bradley is completely enraptured by them.

I give her the Hawke-side-eye, “We slept.”

“And…”

“ _Slept_. Dreamed?”

“Mmhmm…” she looks away from me, dubious, “you’ve got to close the deal, Gare-Bear.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. He’s obviously interested in your… deal. He wants you to.”

I swallow, “We’re taking it slow.”

One layer at a time.

She grins, beaming, and slaps my arm. Bradley ambles over at the sound and starts licking my hand protectively, “I think you might actually not screw this up, Big Brother!”

“Yeah?” I laugh and lean back on my hands, “Why?”

“You sound confident. It’s new. It… suits you.”

After that affirming sibling moment, we’re quiet for a while.

Until she asks me to take her and Seamus to The Bone Pit, the gay bar on the coast. By the quarry.

“It’s so gross!” I grimace, “Why?”

“It’ll be fun! Isabela was talking about it last night…” she shrugs, I feel like I missed something in the basement last night… “It’s 18 and over, we can all go… like… a big group date.”

She smiles innocently, but I’m suspicious, “Group date, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“At The Bone Pit?”

“Yeah!”

“How classy. Wait-- why would Seamus want…”

She blinks, fast, “He’s… open to things.”

“What?”

“He’s open-minded.”

I don’t know why, but I agree to this.

A part of me does actually think it would be fun.

I text Fen.

I ask him, politely, if he’d like to join me and my friends, and my baby sister, at The Bone Pit tomorrow night.

 **Ha. Sure.**

So… there’s that.

There’s always The Bone Pit.


	35. Chapter 35

Into every life a little _Bone Pit_ must fall.

It might be unsurprising, but this was never really my thing.

Clubs. Bars.

I cannot dance to save my life. There is simply too much of me, I think.

My limbs are too long.

Picture… a Muppet dancing.

That kind of jaunty, overly-articulated swinging and bobbing?

Like every movement is dictated not by my own internal design but my thin plastic sticks attached to my joints?

Yes.

 _Accurate._

I spent too much time staring into the depths of my closet and came up with nothing exciting.

So I went with a grey t-shirt and flannel and jeans.

Exciting, right?

I pick up Fen first. He’s wearing a pretty standard Fen look; Black button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, black pants, black shoes, beanie.

“Are we really going to The Bone Pit?” he asks me, standing in his doorway.

“Yes,” I cringe, “I’m already sorry.”

He smirks, “Give me a second, yeah?”

He lets me inside and walks back into the shallow nook that houses his bathroom. I listen to him brush his teeth.

The place looks the same. Comfortably deconstructed.

There is a huge mess of cut matting and Exacto blades and straight-edges on his table, and next to that a very tidy stack of framed photographs.

“Are these for Bianca’s?”

He pokes his head out of the bathroom, leaning back, “Yeah.”

 _Fuck, he’s good._

The top framed photograph is black and white, a roll of steam over black craggy rock.

The light in this is… unreal. Ridiculous.

 _Amazing ridiculous._

“Iceland?”

“Yeah.”

He’s there, next to me.

“How long did you live there?”

He shrugs, “Long enough.”

“Do you speak Icelandic?”

He kind of chuckles and peels away from me.

“You do! Oh my god… I don’t even know what Icelandic sounds like.”

Ask him to say something.

My brain spins in a lurching, Muppet-like fashion at the possibilities.

Fen’s lived in a lot of places.

Places with a lot of different languages.

And he’s effing brilliant, which means…

We’re in the hall, and he locks the door.

“How do you say hello in Icelandic?”

“ _Halló?_.”

“Oh.”

The _accent_ , though?

We walk down to the car.

“How do you say goodbye?”

“ _Bless_ ,” he humors me.

“How do you say,” I unlock the car doors and we get in, “’ _My hovercraft is full of eels?_ ’”

This earns me a genuine, full-chest laugh.

I caught him off guard.

I can’t look away from him.

 _His smile…_

“Uhh…” he thinks, concentrating seriously, “I don’t think I know the word for… _hovercraft_. In any language, actually.”

“Other than English.”

“Ha. Clearly,” he watches me as I drive, “let me get back to you on that, okay?”

“Sure, yeah,” I grin goofily, "But I really do need to know. It comes up. More than you'd think."

"I'm sure."

I continue to ask him Icelandic vocabulary until we reach Mom’s.

I’m DD tonight. The Bone Pit is 18 and over, but serves alcohol. And it’s a long way out there. If my baby sister’s involved, I’ll be damned if I don’t make sure she gets home safely.

Bethany and Seamus are waiting for us on the porch.

So… you know… sober night at the gay club.

 _Woo._

…

Basically, The Bone Pit sits near the edge of the quarry like something out of _Mad Max_. Or that bar in _From Dusk Till Dawn_.

But it’s busy. Surprisingly popular. I'm legitimately surprised.

There’s a line outside against the crumbling brick exterior. Andy, Isabela and Merrill are standing near the door and I feel the bass from the music inside in my chest.

Isabela waves us over, “It’s a Foam Party! Foamsgiving!”

“What?”

Andy’s smirking and looking cold in a white t-shirt, “I can’t believe you’re here. It's so out of character!”

“Yeah, yeah…” I look at Isabela, “It’s a what now?”

“Foam party,” she’s a little glittery all over, in an apple-red tank and _incredibly_ short shorts, “You’re a little over dressed,” she smiles at me and then at Fen, who is looking politely forlorn next to me.

“I’m… listen, Grandpa here hasn’t been out in a long time,” I say, turning my head to look at the line which we are not in, “fill me in... what’s a foam party?”

“Ahh! I’m so excited!” Bethany grabs my arm, “They pump foam onto the dance floor. And you dance in it. And it’s… slippery.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Old man!” Andy, who is decidedly older than me shakes his head at me, “It’s fun, you’ll like it.”

A side door opens, “Come on!” Bela grabs his hand and Merrill’s.

The line grumbles behind me, “Wh--”

“I know the owner,” Isabela says, “Old friend.”

The five of them slip inside quickly.

“Sorry!” I bend my head down and say to Fen.

He laughs, “It’s not really my thing. But… it’s not yours either.”

“No!”

He scratches his chin and walks inside.

And I follow him.

...

Isabela fawns over her old friend Hugh ( _who is very, very fancy and ambiguously European_ ) for a little bit while those of use who are well past 18 get carded and wrist-banded, while Bethany and Seamus get carded and stamped with black-light ink X’s on the backs of their hands.

The upside of Isabela’s connection to fancy-Hugh is that we get escorted to a little VIP room above the dance floor that has couches and tables and is separate from everything else.

The old man part of me is seriously delighted to see couches.

 _I'm Garrett. I’m twenty-seven and I like to sit._

It’s elaborate. Gaudy. It looks like the opera box where Lincoln was shot... if that opera box was, you know, a place that men also probably blew each other and drank cheap vodka.

More than that, though, the real decor worth mentioning is an enormous purple fiberglass dragon suspended over the dance floor.

Here, in the VIP lounge, we’re at eye-level with the dragon.

Bethany looks beyond delighted as she slips off her jacket.

“Bethy?”

“Yeah, Gare-bear?”

“What’s happened to the back of your shirt?”

She shakes her head at me, “Prude.”

There is no back of her shirt.

I see Andy look out of the corner of my eye.

He sees me and raises his hands innocently, shaking his head.

Seamus, wearing a very tight black v-neck, takes her hand and leads her back down the stairs just as the lighting shifts and, oh god, really? a torrent of white foam surges out of the mouth of the dragon and onto the writhing dance floor below.

Andy and Isabela cackle next to each other, genuinely and adorably excited, and then disappear down the stairs.

It’s nuts.

Merrill squeezes my arm, “It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?”

I laugh, and shout over the music “Yeah! I think maybe that’s a good word for it.”

“I’m going to try it out!” she says cheerfully, “I’ve never danced in foam before!”

“Have fun!”

She glances at Fen quickly, then grins up at me, “You too.”

 _She’s a beautiful girl, our Merrill._

She pats the center of my chest sweetly and then darts away.

Fen and I stand near the railing, and I watch as Merrill finds Andy and Bela, slipping towards them only to be caught by heroically by Andy.

“I don’t suppose you want to…” I look at Fen sideways.

“Do _you_??” he’s incredulous.

I shrug, “I don’t know yet. I’m not… completely opposed.”

He laughs, “Right now?”

“Mmm…” I grimace, “Maybe in a little bit.”

He nods.

“Want to sit down?”

“I really love sitting,” I say seriously.

…

The others materialize once in a while, dragging themselves up the stairs drenched and foamy to either just take a breather or drink something.

Apart from that, though, it’s pretty much just Fen and I.

We end up having the longest conversation we’ve ever had up there.

 _He's funny._

 _Really dry._

 _But smart and sharp and funny._

 _The couches are set back further, with a wall partly blocking the room from the open dance space._

 _I can’t even imagine the things that have happened in here._

 _It’s probably best not to._

 _Imagine._

 _The illusion of privacy, you know?_

We’re both drinking water.

When he found out I was sober, he decided to be sober as well.

We’re sitting next to each other. I’m slumped low on the couch, the back of my head resting on a particularly battered old bit of cushion.

Our thighs are pressed together.

“You old grandpas need to get out there,” Isabela puts her empty water glass down on a table.

The glitter has more or less been foamed off, and she’s shiny and flushed.

“Oh, really?” I’m perfectly happy right here.

“Yes!”

Fen squints up at her, “How about this,” I look at him, and he says wryly, “the next Lady Gaga song? When that starts, come get us.”

“What?!” she’s legitimately shocked, but not about to reject this offer, “Okay!”

“What?” I yelp.

He shrugs, “It’s just foam.”

I can’t help it.

I smile.

Like an idiot.

Isabela turns and leaves us, heading back into the fray.

“Who _are_ you?”

He extends his hand to me, “Fen Aucoin, nice to meet you.”

I take his hand, I’ll play, “Garrett Hawke. Aucoin…” I swallow, “Is that French?”

He nods, “Creole.”

“Creole?!”

He shrugs.

 _Fuck that’s hot._

“I used to do this,” he slumps back into the couch next to me, his shoulder against mine.

“Foam?”

He laughs, “No. That’s new. But…” he gestures out, “clubs.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmhm,” he looks at me, “and I was not sober. This is the first time I think I’ve ever been sober in a place like this. It’s…” he grins, “different.”

“Yeah?”

He rolls his head back, staring up at the velvet-draped ceiling, “I want to tell you.”

 _Tell me?!_

“Now? You want… you want to tell me now? At _The Bone Pit_?”

“It seems… oddly appropriate,” his tone is light, not conflicted, not tortured.

Relaxed?

“I… if you’d rather not--”

“Yeah, I mean…” I sit up, “if you want…”

A new song starts and for a second I think it’s Lady Gaga.

It’s not.

“So…” the corner of his mouth curls, “he left me.”

He looks at me.

This isn’t a painful recollection for him, but I’m on edge.

Nervous.

 _This is new._

 _And, wow, this feels like the wrong place for this conversation._

 _But maybe that’s why he’s doing it._

 _Now._

 _Here._

 _Because it’s safe in its wrongness._

 _But safe for which one of us?_

 _I don’t think it’s him._

 _He looks fine._

 _No… this is for me._

“Dan left me behind. And that was the end. I had no choice. He decided it was over. And it was over.”

“Uh-huh?”

“He, uh,” he frowns, and says bluntly, “shared me. With other people.”

 _Fuck._

 _It’s a brutal little word._

“Yeah,” he gauges my reaction, which must be written all over my broad stupid face.

 _I’ve looked into what a dom/sub relationship means._

 _It means a lot of things to different people._

 _What he’s described?_

 _The tattoos… taking it to that level._

 _They were… are... a brand._

 _Permanent._

I feel something tighten inside.

He he looks totally fine. Like it's nothing.

Like he's over it.

“He decided who and when and where,” he says quickly, “and the last time, he didn’t come back for me. He’d found someone new. That’s how it was with him. I’d replaced someone else before me. I wanted that. Hmm.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly,” he drinks some water and says casually, over the music, “So there I am, twenty-four years old and… I’ve got nothing. No skills, no money, nobody, nothing,” he smirks, “And something just kind of, snapped. It was like I woke up. And I needed to go. I went back to his place when I knew he wouldn’t be there, and I took about twenty-grand and forty-eight hours later I was living in London.”

“ _What_?!”

“It was like, fight or flight kicked in. I chose flight... with a side of theft. Is that…” he’s studying my face, “too much?”

I shake my head.

“You sure?”

I keep seeing the word _shared_ run across my simple little brain like a stockmarket ticker.

"Do you think he'll... the money?"

He shrugs, "It was years ago. I don't know if he'd ever... if it matters to him. It's been years."

I sit there kind of stunned.

“Sorry, Jesus…” he sits up, shaking his head like he’s trying to dislodge something. Something creeps in. Doubt. Regret, “I don’t know why--”

I reach for him, holding his jaw with my fingers in his hair.

His mouth opens under mine.

“I don’t know either,” I say back, kissing him.

Again, more.

I pull him in.

I pull him into myself, over me, onto me.

We’re in the dark on this manky couch.

In The _bloody_ Bone Pit.

But I can’t not do this.

 _Shared._

I have to.

I’m compelled to.

The weight of his body on mine feels real.

Grounding.

And I wrap my arms around his waist.

He lets me pull him in, hard, against me.

I gasp into his mouth and he swallows it.

“You’re a thief?” I rasp.

He kisses me, demanding and unapologetic, and I feel something snap inside of him. Like an electric charge. He growls, “It seems that way.”

“I’m into that,” I say stupidly, my head feels light as he’s pressing the air out of me, "I used to steal blocks from school."

He grinds against me, "Blocks?"

I throw my head back and groan, "Yeah... I was a klepto until the third grade. _Ah!_ "

That groan turns into a whine when I feel his teeth on my throat.

 _Wolf._

Distantly, I hear _Just Dance_ and I know that means something.

 _Something. What--_

“Boys!”

He pulls back from me.

 _No… wait._

 _Come back!_

“Don’t mind me…” Isabela’s leaning on the banister, “you can keep doing what you’re doing down there. It’s slippery. Foamy goodness!”

I hate her a little bit.

Just for a second.

My hands are still on his hips.

“Or… not.”

“Do you want…” I don’t sound like myself.

Deeper. Rougher.

“I set the terms,” he sighs.

“ _Why_ did you do that?”

He shrugs, “I like to try new things sometimes.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he eases off of me and I follow him.

My legs feel unreal, mythical, but they somehow carry me down the stairs and into the foam.

Which it silly.

We’re too old for this.

But my friends are there.

My _family_ is there.

And with a shrug, Fen is there too.

It’s the first time for each of us.

It’s nice.

It’s great.

It’s strangely liberating and I secretly really like Lady Gaga and things are great…

Until I lose my footing and slip and hit the ground like a ton of rocks taking Fen with me.

“Ow.”

Andy skids over and helps Fen up then me.

“You okay?” he shouts, hair stuck to the sides of his face, “It happens!”

I rub my elbow which really took the brunt of both of our falls.

Fen’s standing with his legs set wide for balance and I laugh, “This is stupid!”

“Yeah, but it’s fun!” Andy shouts back, and pushes me towards Fen before going back to Bethany and Merrill.

Andy’s right.

He’s totally right.

I kiss Fen, holding his face.

And he kisses me back.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I say, and I don’t know if he can hear me because I don’t say it very loud.

“Ah, fuck!”

He slips again and, laughing, holds onto me to stay upright.

I am only marginally more stable but my shoes have better traction or something and I keep us both upright.

 _I don’t know why he told me that tonight._

 _And... I kind of do._

 _I’m glad he’s here._

 _I’m glad we both got here._


	36. Chapter 36

“Where’s Seamus?”

My ears are ringing and my shirt is plastered to me.

My eyes sting a little from the foam.

My elbow hurts like hell and so does my knee which took another blow in a different fall.

And my lips are swollen.

And I can taste Fen if I run my tongue against the inside of my lip.

 _God._

We’re outside, all of us… except for Seamus.

Because we’re responsible adults and we lost the mayor’s only son in the gay bar.

Bethany, who is huddling together with Merrill for warmth darts back inside.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll go help,” Andy says, pushing lank foam-wet hair back from his face.

“Andy?”

He looks over his shoulder at me as he walks to the door, “She, um, might not be able to find him… if he’s…” he smiles, “I’m just going to help her look.”

Isabela, still in very little clothing, is shivering in his absence.

Merrill quickly goes over to her and hugs her, rubbing her bare arms for warmth.

Fen’s hands are buried in his pockets and he rocks back and forth on his heels.

He stays close to me.

I want…

 _I want to grab him and hold on to him, because I know now, I really know, how good that fit is. He’s, like, the perfect height for me._

I smile.

The door opens and the three of them come out. Seamus looks wrecked.

“ _Someone_ made a new friend tonight,” Andy says under his breath as he passes me to wrap long arms around the huddle of Merrill and Isabela.

I look at Bethany.

She’s grinning.

And so is Seamus.

Huh.

“Okay, well,” Isabela says, poking her head under Andy’s arm and looking at us, “This has been a lovely evening but now I’m freezing my tits off and there’s a warm bath and a bottle of whiskey waiting for me at home, so...”

We say our goodbyes, Bethany hugging the three of them tightly (I’m taking her to the airport tomorrow so this is goodbye until her winter break). I smile to myself in a way that I hope isn’t completely obvious when Andy and Fen kind of clap each other on the arms… because… I mean…

They kind of both…

 _I mean._

 _They each mean a lot to me._

 _I…_

 _Yeah._

 _I mean, if this is the Wizard of Oz, Andy’s my Scarecrow._

 _I should tell him that._

The car is freezing cold when we get in, and I blast the heat.

I have a couple of thin blankets in the trunk and I grab them before we drive off, letting Bethany and Seamus cuddle together under one in the backseat while Fen kind of balls the other one in his lap.

I drop Seamus off at the estate, wondering if the mayor will care that his son is coming home drenched and disheveled and...

“Bethany?” I say, driving slowly in the fog, “What, uh… what was…”

“He met someone,” she says, pulling the blanket up over her head like a shawl and snuggling into the seat, “His name is Ash.”

“And you’re…” I glance in the rearview mirror, “You’re okay?”

She laughs, “Ha! Yes, Dad, I’m fine. I… I know this about Shea. It’s cool. I don’t mind.”

So… they’re mini Andy and Isabela?

 _I…_

 _I don’t need that mental image in my head._

 _But… if she’s happy like they are?_

“Thanks for coming, Gare-Bear.”

I see the corner of Fen’s mouth tug at that.

Perfect.

“You’re welcome, Bethy. It was fun. Ridiculous, but fun.”

I drop her off, popping in quickly to say goodnight to Mom. Carver is asleep on the couch next to her where she’s sitting and watching something French and subtitled.

Fen stays outside and smokes a cigarette.

I find him on the porch.

He exhales smoke through his nose, “ _Gare-Bear_?”

“Oh, shut up,” I take a step closer to him, and he drops the cigarette, putting it out under his foot.

“Not everyone can be as cool as you are… some of us get stuck with embarrassing nicknames made up by three year old girls.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” he says, pressing his lips together.

No. It isn’t.

I buttoned my flannel against the cold before coming back outside.

He looks at my chest, “You missed a button.”

I look down at myself. Decidedly off kilter.

“I did,” I make no move to fix it.

I feel every muscle in my body, acutely and with a faint electric twinge, as he takes the last half step between us.

His fingers are quick, even on the damp stubborn fabric, unbuttoning my shirt with a familiarity that takes me by surprise.

I watch his hands as he re-buttons them from the bottom of the shirt up.

 _Neat. In order._

“How do you ‘ _thanks_ ’ in Icelandic?” I’m breathing quick and shallow.

“ _Takk._ ”

“ _Takk._ ”

The porch light turns off.

We’re standing there in the sudden dark.

And I feel his laugh.

…

We’re both quiet on the drive to his place.

I’m driving slowly because of the fog.

So we’re quiet for a while.

With no one here… no one in the backseat… and no foam, no dragons, no kissing… just us and our ringing ears and the radio turned on low…

It’s like a buzz wearing off.

 _Shared._

Like, the dull ache of dehydrated sobriety.

 _Shared._

A headache, not quite a hangover yet.

 _Shared._

Stopped at a completely empty intersection, I look over at him.

He feels it too, I think.

But I can’t really read him.

Not really.

I want to.

 _Shared._

I wish that younger me could have met younger him.

Maybe we both could have avoided--

But…

If we had, I don’t know that younger him would have even been remotely interested in younger me.

 _I would never--_

“Do you want to come in?”

His voice cracks the quiet just as the light turns green.

“Yeah.”

He nods, and takes off his glasses, folds them and puts them in his lap, rubbing his face with his elbow resting on the door.

Yeah.

I do.

I hold on to the wheel tightly.

 _This is a thing…_

 _He’s not a fantasy._

 _He’s not some kind of perfect… he’s not perfect._

 _As much as I might think he is._

 _He’s real._

 _And he’s lived a lot more life than I have._

 _And don’t know if I’d be as brave as him…_

 _If I would tell me that._

Because now that it’s just us, here, as much as I don’t want to, I just keep hearing his voice say _shared_ and seeing him hurt.

Seeing a different _him_ hurt… the him that turned into this him, eventually. Over time.

And wondering…

What kind of person could do that to someone else?

What kind of person wants someone to do that to them?

I’m not… I just want understand.

And…

He reaches over and turns the radio up.

It’s too quiet in here for him too.

…

“I, uh…” his head is down, walking ahead of me into the apartment. His fingers turn on a lamp, “I don’t know if I have anything that would…” he glances up, “fit you.”

I pull at my shirt which is more or less dry, but uncomfortable and sticky.

“That’s okay.”

He won’t look me in the eye.

"Hmm," he turns and digs through a drawer in a dresser wedged between the desk and the wall.

A long sleeved shirt that actually looks like it’ll fit.

“Sorry, I don’t have any… pants.”

 _Which is too bad, really, because my jeans are way more uncomfortable damp than my shirt is._

“It’s fine… I’m fine.”

He’s not.

“I’m going to change,” he says, rubbing his neck, “you can put something on, to watch or listen to, if you want…” he gestures at the computer as he turns, grabbing a different shirt and pants from a pile before going into the bathroom closet.

I wake the computer out of standby on and change shirts while it whirrs to alertness.

The shirt fits pretty well actually. It would be enormous on him.

It smells like him and cedar.

I bend down to open his itunes because it is still so quiet.

His editing program is open.

I don’t open it.

That’s important.

That’s an important detail.

It was open.

And it was me.

My face.

In black and white.

Here in this room, with my eyes closed and the back of my head against the wall.

It’s me, talking about my dad.

And coffee.

 _But it’s me the way he sees me._

 _Better than real life._

The light… I don’t know how he does that.

And even the random, wandering little black stitches of neck beard look good.

Right.

 _It’s me through his lens._

My hands are shaking.

I breathe out slowly.

By the time I’m standing at the bathroom-closet door, my hands aren’t shaking anymore.

I knock.

“Yeah?”

“Fen.”

“It’s… it’s open.”

I push the door.

He’s leaning against the sick, which is running, staring down at the water that’s pooling against a stubborn drain.

And he’s in a different pair of pants.

But his glasses are off.

And his shirt is wadded between his hand and the counter.

His skin…

His skin is perfect.

I see that more than the tattoos.

Which are everywhere and beautiful, artful, and curve with the lines of his body.

“Are you okay?” he turns the sink off, and looks at me.

I nod.

“Are you?”

He laughs and it echoes off the walls, “I generally am, yeah.”

“Generally?”

He lets me see him.

“Yeah,” he looks into the mirror, squinting and creasing wrinkles by his eyes, “Yeah, I am.”

A muscle twitches below his arm, across his ribs.

“Does it bother you?”

 _I’m not sure what it he means and I don’t know how to ask for clarification._

“I…” I lean my shoulder against the narrow door frame, “I like who you are.”

A completely honest answer, that.

“Sorry that I…” he stands up, back straight, rigid, “It just felt like the right…” he shrugs, “I like who you are, too.”

This feels like one of those big adult moments.

But… what’s always weird about those moments is that it’s never like it is in the movies… the actual moment is usually very still. Because when you start to grow up, the big things are the things that _make_ you still.

“I’d really like to kiss you,” I say, “I’d really like that.”

He doesn’t move.

Until he does.

Standing straight, his head is level with my shoulder.

When he looks up at me, close to me, his head falls back and his throat is tight when he talks, “I haven’t told anyone about that part of me in a long time. I wanted to tell you. And I’m glad I did.”

I nod quickly.

“I’m not who I was then… I’m not the same person. I still have the same body, the same skin… but when I think about who I was, it’s like seeing someone else's life. Not mine.”

“I understand.”

I think I do.

 _And what I don’t…_

 _I want to keep trying to._

He smiles, “Let’s get out the bathroom, yeah?”

“It is a very small bathroom.”

“It really is.”

I turn and walk back towards the center of the main room.

He follows.

He pulls me back towards himself, down, and I immediately reach for his sides because all that skin is there for the first time, really there, and he’s warm and smooth. And I need to touch.

His lips are warm, and wet, and familiar.

I love that they are familiar.

I love it so much the I moan.

And I feel the shift of muscle under skin and over bone as he twists between my palms.

Skin against skin and I sink into a fog. A Fen-Fog.

Because for the first time it’s like there’s nothing there between us.

I mean, literally.

Between my hands and his body there is nothing.

But… I mean, figuratively, too.

 _I think I understand._

 _I have… questions._

 _Concerns._

 _Comments._

But I think on some level I understand.

“You’re so fucking tall, Hawke,” he smiles, fingers digging into the back of my neck, pulling me back with him towards the bed.

I'm more than willing to follow, not at all willing to stop kissing him while I do, “I know.”

When the backs of his legs hit the mattress he pauses.

His eyes are black.

No glasses.

I smooth a finger over his eyebrow and his eyes close.

He sits after a couple of heavy breaths and I follow.

And with a mattress under myself and him next to me.

I don’t know.

It real.

It’s not in my head and it’s not being screwed up.

And I’m not _Gare-Bear_ here.

 _I’m Garrett and he’s Fen._

 _I’m 27 years old._

 _He’s 31 years old._

 _We were both born on holidays._

 _We were both kids._

 _We both grew up._

He’s under me.

And we crash through that fence that separates sweet and dirty like it was nothing.

And it feels so good to crash.

His mouth, his lips, his tongue.

He pulls air out of me and then gives it back.

And he bites.

And I bite back.

His body is hard in places that mine is soft.

And he’s smooth.

And, oh god, I’m not.

I falter and turn back into myself when he grabs the bottom of the shirt and pulls it up, trying to tug it over my head.

I pull back, sitting back with it bunched under my arms.

 _He’s seen me._

 _He knows what I look like._

 _But we look so… different._

 _He looks, and feels so good, and I--_

He follows me up.

And levels himself with me, in front of me, the mattress sagging where our four knees dig in together.

He looks at my face, and swallows, and takes the cotton of the shirt in his hands and carefully pulls up. Up.

And I let my arms go up.

And he slides it off.

Off.

And he looks at me.

My face and…

 _Me._

And I wonder if he sees me now the way he did through that lens.

I hope so.

He smooths a flat hand against my chest, with the grain of the hair, and settles it over my heart.

He smiles.

Dark wolf eyes and messy white hair.

And his hand over my heart.

His body is radiating heat next to mine.

“I like this,” he says, voice quiet and rough.

“I don’t,” I say quickly.

He frowns at me, and says with certainty, “You’re ridiculous.”

I reach for him.

I kiss him.

Mouth.

Cheeks.

Chin.

Jaw.

Ears.

Oh, he’s into that.

Throat.

We lay back down, and I roll over him again.

He drags fingers through the hair on my arms.

Into the patch of hair that grows in roughly the shape of the state of Utah on the small of my back.

I hold his jaw, and kiss.

My hand is against his throat--

“ _No._ ”

He goes rigid.

And I roll off.

Fast.

Immediate.

Like I touched an electric fence.

And I’m fried.

Like the kid in _Jurassic Park_.

I was clinging onto that fence and the power came back on and it said _NO_ in a way that stopped my heart.

And I need a handsome paleontologist to breathe life back into me.

He looks away, propping himself up on his elbows, “I, um… I’m weird about the neck.”

Heart has restarted. Without the handsome paleontologist.

He sounds like him.

Not _No_.

That _No_ did not sound like him.

“Sorry.”

He looks at me, and smiles.

I can see his stomach rise and fall with every breath.

White marks curl against his skin.

And I hate them and I want them.

“You didn’t know.”

“So… don’t touch the neck?”

He presses his lips together, “As a general rule. Yeah. Not… not with your hand.”

“Okay.”

He smiles weakly, “Kissing… kissing’s okay.”

“Okay?”

“Nice. Good.”

“Okay.”

He squints at me, “I don’t want ruin this.”

“Neither do fucking I.”

He laughs.

“I want to. Do this. With you.”

I nod stupidly.

Miraculously, without any paleontological assistance my heart has completely restarted as is now hammering out of control.

“I don’t know… if…”

“We can just…” I fold my hands, “pants stay on?”

He smirks, “I think for tonight, that’s a good plan.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Is that… second base?”

“I was never really clear on the bases,” I admit.

“I think, first base is kissing. Second is,” he scans my torso, “touching. Pants on. Third is...” the smirk turns into a smile, “oral. And then…”

“And then… home?”

He laughs, “Yeah. Home.”

“I’m… really okay with… adhering to those guidelines,” I can’t entirely talk around the huge amount of air trapped in my lungs.

“Okay. Okay,” he nods, flicking hair out of his eyes, “So, we’re good at second base?”

“Yes.”

He nods.

“So… we kiss. Touch. And… pants stay on?”

“Yes.”

He rolls up and over to me, kissing me very lightly, “Thank you, Garrett.”

“How do you say ‘you’re welcome’ in Icelandic?”

“ _þú ert velkominn._ ”

I laugh, “Yeah… that.”

And we do that.

Kiss.

Touch.

He keeps his pants on.

And I keep my uncomfortable, damp, wet-tight pants on, too.

And I'm totally fine with that.


	37. Chapter 37

I love Bianca’s for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being that as much as a place that isn't home can, it feels like home.

Especially at night. After hours and clean and dark and cozy… It’s inviting. I could sleep here if I needed to. Really.

I have napped in the storage before, once, spooning a bag a whole beans.

Merrill covered for me.

But it’s never felt more like home than it does right now.

Sitting with Fen with the doors locked and the shades drawn, our backs against the counter, eating a plate of whatever baked goods were left over at the end of the day.

And me saying just… completely insipid things without meaning to.

So while some things change…

“So… what _did_ you mean?” the sound of his laugh always originates in some deep part of his chest.

I could listen to his laugh forever.

I love it because I feel it too… like… like a bass line.

He looks like a guy that doesn’t laugh very much.

But, I mean, he does. A lot.

“I…” I groan, “I _meant_ that--”

He levels me with a critical little smirk.

And eyes that are more black than green in the low light.

What are words?

“Oh, fuck it! Forget I said anything…”

He laughs again.

Over the last week, I’ve come to the realization that he’s genuinely entertained by my inability to filter.

He’s not just humoring me.

He thinks I’m funny.

And that’s got to mean something significant.

“Hmm…” he’s still laughing, and he presses his lips together.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I lean forward, his focus slides to my face.

“I figured as much,” he tilts his head up.

Shaking my head, I break off half of a cookie and pop it in my mouth and change the subject, “They look great.”

He looks appraisingly up at the walls where eight of his photographs are framed and mounted.

“They do. Thanks for helping.”

“Listen, I might not be good at a lot of things,” I lick melted chocolate from the heel of my hand, “but I can hang things on walls like nobody’s business. It’s a gift.”

I look up at his photographs. Cityscapes, landscapes, beautiful portraits of strangers.

 _His eye… the way that he sees the world through that lens… like he find these isolated moments of calm in a world that is anything but; it’s beautiful and harsh, clever…_

 _It’s him._

He’s watching me.

“I still can’t believe you’re completely self taught,” I say looking at this beautifully rendered collection of places he’s lived, people he’s known before.

Before me.

“I am part of the uneducated masses, yeah.”

“That…” I glance at him sideways, “That doesn’t matter.”

He reaches for the half of the cookie I left on the plate between us and raises an eyebrow at me, “I’m not sensitive about it.”

“I didn’t… I mean…” I sigh, “You’re bloody brilliant.”

In a way that can’t be taught.

“How many languages do you speak?”

He swallows, “Huh?”

“I speak English. Most of the time,” I laugh, “Most of the time I can speak it… and, like, enough Italian to find a bathroom and order food… but, that’s it,” I look up at the wall.

I stand up.

I need to anyway, I can feel my shins starting to go numb.

I stretch my back, my arms, and step closer to the photographs.

“This,” I point to one, a cemetery lit by thousands of candles, “Dia de los Muertos. Mexico. You speak Spanish.”

He looks up at me, “Yeah.”

I smile, goofily, “Please?”

“You… want me to… speak in Spanish? Right now? On command?” he looks amused.

“Yeah,” I bite my lip, “please? If you don't mind...”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know… do you… have anything memorized?”

He laughs, “A monologue?”

“Yeah! Or… a speech. A poem? I don’t know.”

“You want me to recite a poem in Spanish?”

I shrug, “Why not?”

He groans and lets his head fall back against the counter, “Uh…”

He rolls his eyes up at me.

Yes, I’m being ridiculous.

 _But when he starts?_

I don’t care.

I’ll be ridiculous forever if it means things like this continue to happen.

He grins and I watch his face as he pulls something up out of his memory.

“ _Si no fuera porque tus ojos tienen color de luna,  
de día con arcilla, con trabajo, con fuego,  
y aprisionada tienes la agilidad del aire,  
si no fuera porque eres una semana de ámbar…_”

He looks up at me expectantly.

I can’t breathe.

 _And, fuck it, I’m hard._

 _And…_

“Is that…” he leans forward, “sufficient?”

“Wh… what is that?”

He laughs, looking down, embarrassed, “Pablo Neruda.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him embarrassed before. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I tease, “How seductive, Fen!”

He rubs the back of his neck, “It was the only thing I could remember.”

“Did you… memorize that to…” I waggle my eyebrows like an idiot, “you know.”

He smiles a funny little private smile I’ve never seen before, “Maybe.”

“Oh-ho! Did it work?”

“Do you think it worked?”

Hmm…

 _Do I think that an insanely fucking sexy man reciting Pablo Neruda in Spanish might convince me, or any other man, or because I now know that Fen is also that way inclined, woman, to sleep with said insanely fucking sexy man?_

 _Play it coy, Garrett._

“I’m, uh… not sure yet.”

“Oh…” he feigns hurt, “I see.”

I look at another photo. “Amsterdam. What do they speak there?”

“A lot of different languages.”

“What did you speak there?”

“English. French.”

 _Oh, fuck._

“You remember any more of that poem?”

“You want me to do it in French?” he is incredulous.

I am incorrigible and full of cookies and hard and… “Yeah!”

He laughs, and I can see the gears working as he continues, translating the poem from Spanish into French and…

More importantly…

He’s speaking French with his eyes closed.

For me.

There’s a photograph of the Frauenkirche in Munich.

“German?”

He opens his eyes and looks at me and without missing more than a couple of beats, switches to German.

I feel giddy.

I look at Kazan Cathedral lit up in black and white.

 _No way._

“Russian?”

He laughs and stands up, thinking.

He takes a few steps closer to me, eyes fixed on my face which, I’m sure is just completely bugged out.

 _He’s amazing._

He starts speaking in Russian.

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

He laughs and keeps speaking… and I can’t follow anything but…

He touches the corner of another photo.

Iceland.

He finishes the poem in that Icelandic.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, “That is my favorite one.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Your… favorite photograph?”

“No. My favorite language.”

“Which one is your favorite photograph?”

 _I’m going to kiss him._

“It’s not here.”

 _I can do that._

“No?”

 _We’ve been warming second base for over a week._

“No.”

 _I want more._

 _Every time._

 _I want more, more, every time._

“Why not?”

“It’s not for sale.”

 _I want more this time._

His lips open under mine.

“Tell… tell me something true,” I say into his mouth.

He blinks, “What?”

His eyes get so dark.

“Tell me something true,” I repeat, but it makes about as much sense to me as it does to him.

He holds my neck, thumbs against my pulse.

“ _Þú gerir mig hamingjusama_ ,” true in Icelandic is still true, so I take it “ _Ég vil þig._ ”

He holds back for a minute, just looking at me.

Hesitating.

Please don’t make me the one to stop, Fen.

Please.

He pulls me down.

“Tell me something else.”

He chuckles, “Why?”

“Because I,” _get off on_ “really like the way it sounds,” I kiss him, “I really like it.”

He exhales against me, “ _Svifnökkvinn minn er fullur af álum._ ”

Hot. I smile and kiss him, “Which… what....”

He kisses me, deep and real and strong, and I stagger when he virtually purrs against my mouth, “ _My hovercraft is full of eels._ ”

And I completely lose my shit.

He steps back from me, looking pleased with himself as I laugh until I cry.

“You… looked that up?”

“Yeah. I didn’t…” he wrinkles his nose and pushes his glasses up, “I haven’t seen very much Monty Python, but, uh--”

“We need to do something about that!” I wipe my eyes, “I own everything. I used, to, hah, I watched it with my dad. I, seriously… come over, we’ll get you started on a Monty Python regimen. It’s important.”

“Okay, yeah. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Oh.”

His eyes open all the way.

I haven’t told him.

I don’t know why.

“I, uh…" my voice goes up a little, "I’m getting a wisdom tooth taken out tomorrow.”

He tilts his head, “Really?”

“Yeah. Just one. My last one.”

 _My teeth are so fucked._

 _I think that in the long laundry list of things that I’m insecure about… the teeth are up there._

 _High._

 _And painful._

 _And expensive._

“You’re a little old for that, aren’t you?”

“Ouch,” I feign insult, “It’s…” I can feel him looking at my mouth and I try to talk with my lips closed, “been a process.”

“Huh. Do you… need anything?”

I scratch my nose to cover my mouth, “I’ll be out of it, but, uh… Andy’s driving me home. After.”

“Oh.”

“I mean,” I swallow, “Um…”

He looks up at me.

“Would you…”

He smirks and ducks his head.

“Are you busy?”

I’m nervous.

It’s like asking him on a date.

A date where I’ll be drugged and bloody, swollen and--

“Nothing planned yet.”

“I’m… I can be a little difficult sometimes. With the… the anesthesia…”

He smiles, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” I need to be kissing him again.

“Yeah.”

Like right now.

…

“Are you ready?”

I sigh.

And twitch.

“Uhhh…”

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve done this.

I’m still nervous.

Anxious.

I feel cold.

Uncertain.

And, yes, I’ll admit it if anyone asks, _scared_.

“Yeah.”

Oral surgery is this reoccurring event in my life that I wish, I wish, would stop happening… but it just doesn’t.

But I like Dr. Riordan.

He’s really got a knack for delivering really bad news as gently as possible.

Which is good because, with my teeth, there’s usually been a fair amount of bad news that needed to be delivered.

And he’s nice, and a good at what he does on top of that.

He’s the only tooth-professional I’ve ever had that I have liked.

I’ve had a lot of dentists.

Orthodontists.

People poking around and rearranging my teeth with varying levels of success and empathy.

But this? This is kind of a milestone.

This is my last wisdom tooth that Dr. Riordan is about to dig out of my jaw. It’s really in there… but it’s coming out.

Finally.

I am a million years older than anyone else coming in here for this…

Or… you know, like _ten_ years older.

Still.

They’re putting me under.

Riordan’s anesthesiologist, a pleasantly pleasant older woman with white hair in cherry red scrubs is holding the oxygen mask, at the ready.

We’ve learned through trial and error (oh, the error…) that I do much better in these situations when I’m good and sedated.

It’s better for everybody really.

I fold my hands over the paper bib clipped around my chest.

I can see my heartbeat rattling away through the textured absorbent paper.

 _Breathe, Garrett._

Fen’s in the waiting room.

I did warn him that I take an especially long time to filter out all the anesthesia and that I stay pretty weird for a while…

He’d been intrigued.

But he’s there now, reading _The Stranger_ in French, not far away.

“Okay!” the woman with the mask in her hand says cheerfully, “here we go, dear!”

 _Oh, hey oxygen._

 _Breathing is good._

“How do you feel?” Dr. Riordan asks.

I give him a thumbs up.

Oxygen is nice.

I should breathe it more often!

I feel… good.

I like feeling good.

 _Fen makes me feel good._

Our pants have stayed on.

But… I mean… sometimes… a hand…

It’s getting harder and harder to stop, though.

I mean… his hand over my pants?

His hand.

Or mine over his?

He’s much better at stopping than I am.

He’s got phenomenal self control.

It’s… admirable--

“How are you doing, Garrett?”

Enthusiastic, two thumbs up.

Wow. My body is so light right now.

“How do you feel?”

I nod.

Whew… okay… hey.

 _Oh, hey there, anesthesia._

 _Nice to see you…_

Fen’s sitting out there now.

He came here with me.

He doesn’t like blood.

And neither do I.

But he’s here.

And I’m glad he is.

Because when he’s not with me… I want him to be.

 _Hey! Is that a unicorn?!_

…

“How are you doing?”

He’s asked me that, like, twenty times.

“I’m Garrett.”

Fen’s car is big.

It’s so much like my car is… but quieter.

And he’s driving it.

And his keys…

His keys look like my keys.

“You are, yeah.”

This is the quietest car I’ve ever been in!

Is it even on?

“Are we moving?”

“Yes,” he’s chuckling. Chuckles are weird.

Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle…

Hey, did you know that seatbelts are weird?

They… belt you to your seat.

Like a belt.

Belts your pants to…

“Hey!” there’s an Fen-hand on my Garrett-hand, “Don’t do that yet.”

Fen’s holding my hand.

And driving.

It’s nice.

I hold his hand, too.

I was just going to push that button on the seat belt… buckle… holder.

I don’t want to be belted!

I hate belts.

I hate what they stand for!

“Fen!”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want this belt!”

He’s laughing at me, “You need to keep it on. It’s the law.”

“Oh... I don’t want to break the laws.”

He’s laughing at me.

“Don’t…” _I can’t ever remember feeling anything like this kind of overwhelming sadness… it’s like a black pit in my chest and my soul and_... “don’t laugh at me…”

“Hey,” he squeezes my fingers, “I didn’t mean it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We’re almost home.”

“Fen?”

“Yes?”

“I saw a unicorn.”

“You did? What was it like?”

“It was beautiful,” it really was, “It had white hair. I wanted to brush its hair, but it ran away from me. And then it dove into a lake. And I wanted to swim with it... but I couldn't. And then it was gone.”

I want to cry.

And then I don't.

“Hey. You have white hair.”

His shoulders are shaking and I like the way his hands look on the steering wheel.

“I do.”

“I wanted to swim with that unicorn, Fen.”

“I’m sorry it got away from you.”

“Me too… I don’t think I’ll ever see it again!”

This is my car.

“This is my car!”

There’s something in my mouth.

“Blech,” I gag, I’m choking, “Fen!”

“Almost home, don’t… Don’t! Garrett! Keep your fingers out of your mouth, Garrett.”

“But I’m choking!”

“No… you’re not. You have gauze in your mouth.”

“Gauze?! In my mouth?”

“For the blood.”

Blood.

I feel dizzy.

I close my eyes, but that just makes me dizzier.

“I don’t want a dry socket, Fen…”

“I don’t want you to have a dry socket either.”

“They say I can’t suck on anything or I’ll get a dry socket!”

“You, uh… planning on sucking on anything?”

“I don’t use straws.”

He’s laughing at me again.

But he’s holding my hand.

And I’m _wearing_ this shirt.

Oh, I like this shirt. It's red and black. I think it's my favorite.

I smooth my other hand down the front of it.

I like the way this feels.

I laugh too.

But I don’t remember why I’m laughing.

…

“This is disgusting.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t talk. Keep your mouth open.”

“Ahhhhhh!”

Andy’s fingers are in my mouth.

Which is weird.

“Are my lips blue?”

He makes a frustrated noise, “Garrett, stop talking.”

I do.

He pulls something out of my mouth.

I see it.

It’s red and white and wet.

I panic.

“Oh, god. Is that part of my mouth?!”

We are in my living room and he’s standing up.

Fen’s here too, behind him.

I’m sitting down.

Andy was upstairs, writing at Isabela's, when we got here and he came down to check on me.

And Fen doesn’t like blood.

And my mouth is full of it.

So I asked Andy to do this.

Because I don’t want to make Fen…

“No… it’s just the gauze. Here, open your mouth. I need to put another one in.”

I want to cry, “I don’t want another one.”

“Just…” he sighs. _I’m frustrating Andy._

I open my mouth.

Wide.

Or… I think I do.

I can’t really feel it.

He crouches and puts another dry piece of gauze in my mouth and stands up, and grabs the other old bloody, ugh… the bloody gauze.

That’s so gross.

I’m glad I asked Andy to do that and not Fen.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He laughs.

“Andy?”

“Yes?”

“You’re my best scarecrow.”

“You’re my best scarecrow too, Garrett.”

“Ugh. No. No. I’m not a… I’m a… what’s the girl’s name? I’m a Wendy. No. I’m a… not Alice. Liza? Yeah… that’s it. I’m a Liza and you’re my scarecrow.”

After that?

It’s kind of a blur.

I mostly sleep.

Andy’s gone the next time I wake up.

I watch a few minutes of Flying Circus, which is on, but I keep falling asleep.

Fen’s there, sitting in the leather chair.

He’s watching Monty Python.

I feel safe listening to familiar accents and the sound of him laughing.

Every time I wake up, he’s there.

Sometimes he has a pill and water for me. Or a popsicle. Some soup.

But mostly, he’s just there.

And his coat is folded over the back on the couch and close to my face.

And I smell him.

And I smile and fall asleep again.


	38. Chapter 38

I finally feel like me and not some drug-soaked sponge version of me by around 8:00 pm.

And since I’ve slept all day, I’m completely wired.

Wide awake but not well-rested.

And I feel kind of crunchy, like stale bread.

But that was the last wisdom tooth.

And hopefully the last time I have to do anything like that for a while.

Hopefully.

And Fen…

“Hey.”

I rub my eyes.

He’s standing in front of me with a bag of frozen peas in his hand wrapped in a tea towel.

“Hey.”

He extends the peas to me and I take them.

“Oh, that feels nice…” I say blissfully, settling the bag over my swollen cheek.

“Do you want another Percocet?”

I shake my head, “It’s okay. Maybe later when I’m trying to sleep.”

“Okay.”

The TV’s off. It’s dark outside and I’m in that weird twilight fog of having no attachment to my internal clock. I know it’s 8:00 because the cable box tells me so… as far as my body’s concerned it could be four in the morning or two in the afternoon tomorrow.

The IKEA lamp next to the chair is on and a library copy of _Fellowship of the Ring_ is spread over the arm of the leather chair.

I smile.

That hurts.

“Ah. How, uh, bad was I?”

He chuckles and sits down in the chair, “You weren’t bad. You were pretty funny.”

“I try.”

“And succeed.”

“Was… was Andy here?”

“For a little while, yeah.”

“God… drugs. I… kind of remember that. Kind of.”

“Do you remember calling him Dad?”

I balk, “No! Did I? How weird!”

“Hmm,” he’s grinning.

“I had a dream…” I push myself into a seated position, “it seemed so real.”

“The, uh, unicorn?”

“What?!”

He laughs, “Not the unicorn then.”

“I’m afraid to ask…”

“You told me in the car that you saw a unicorn, but that it got away from you… you got a little emotional.”

“God, Fen…” I shake my head, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mind,” he says, and the sound of his voice is warm, honest.

 _Close._

“So this other dream…?”

“Oh. I, uh… I met a mouse.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And he was my friend. Then he turned into a bear. And then… I think he betrayed me.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Don’t befriend mice?”

“Probably a good policy. In general.”

I laugh, “ _Ow._ Yeah. Probably.”

We eat dinner (he makes a sandwich and I warm up the soup that Mom made for me two days ago) and then I call Mom to assure her that I’m fine and to check on Bradley who I left there with her, not knowing how up to taking care of an enormous dog I'd feel (when I tell her I’m not alone, I can hear her beaming through the phone).

When my peas start to get mushy, I stand up and slowly drag myself into the shower.

While it feels amazing to let the water wash away that stale bread feeling, the steam makes me dizzy and I end up sitting on the floor of the tub.

I sit there for a while and let the water hit the top of my head while black crowds into my peripheral vision.

Standing up seems like the wrong choice to make at this venture.

So I sit.

Freakishly long limbs and torso just kind of folded up under the shower water.

After a few minutes, I lift my head and tilt it back, eyes shut tight and let the water hit my chest.

“Garrett?”

My eyes snap open.

“Wha, uh, yeah?”

“I was… checking. You, um, you’ve been in here a long time.”

“Have I?” I reach forward and turn off the water.

I can’t see him through the curtain, but I can hear from the echo that he’s at least poked his head into the bathroom.

“Yeah.”

“I, uh…” I push wet hair out of my face, “I got a little dizzy.”

“That can happen,” he sounds calm, closer.

“I’m fine… I sat down.”

“Okay.”

“Feeling better.”

“Okay.”

“Still sitting.”

“Okay. Do you…”

 _On the one hand, I’m completely naked in the same room that he’s in, and that… I mean…_

 _I’ve been thinking about this happening for a while._

 _Thinking about it a lot, actually._

 _Often in here._

 _Actually._

 _But…_

I’m not exactly at my prime right now.

Sitting here like a drowned rat.

If rats were 6’5”.

And had swollen cheeks.

That would be terrifying.

“Do you need anything?”

I laugh, and feel it shake in my throat, “Sitting’s good. I think I might, just, do that.”

“Okay…”

“Would you mind, uh,” _at this point Garrett, what does it really matter?,_ “Sometimes, I um… I need something to distract me, from feeling like I’m going to pass out. Like, I think about it too much and psych myself out and… umm…” I smile and look up at the shadow of him through the curtain, “This is weird, but would you mind just, kind of, staying and… talking?”

“In here?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t mind. Do you want some water or anything?”

“I’ve got lots of water in here.”

“Okay, Ishmael, I meant to drink.”

“Oh… uh… yeah?”

Okay…

So…

This is happening.

This is not sexy.

This is not…

I hear the sink turn on and off, and a second later the curtain pulls back just enough to let in a tattooed hand bearing the glass of water I brought in here with me and left on the counter.

I take it.

He closes the curtain.

I drink, “Was that a Moby Dick joke?”

He laughs, and the way the sound echoes in here send the sound directly into my chest.

And… other places.

Perfect.

Just…

Perfect.

I stare at my cock.

 _You Judas!_

 _Now is not the time…_

“It was a Moby Dick joke. Sorry.”

“No, I… I think there’s not enough… literary… humor in my life.”

“Hmm.”

Seriously…

Between the laugh and the ‘hmm’.

 _Judas, you are not helping._

 _Not helping with the dizzy._

 _Or with anything else._

 _Nope._

“Have you ever read Moby Dick?”

 _For the love of god, can we stop saying Dick?!_

“Uhh… senior year in high school.”

“I liked it. Melville's take on fate was really… interesting.”

 _Dick._

 _Fate._

“Fate?”

“I mean… if our fate can be inherently bound to someone else, or something else, where does our own control end and theirs begin? An Ahab, or a whale… they can control us more than we do ourselves?”

“Uhh…” _come on, Garrett, you used to have these kinds of conversations all the time! And you read Moby Dick, once. Okay, no you didn’t… you read the SparkNotes and watched the movie. Ten years ago. The one with Patrick Stewart… oh, god, Garrett, why didn’t you at least watch the one with Gregory Peck?! Or read the damn book?!_ , “I think that… in order to have our fate controlled by an other… there is always a moment of choice. When we… choose to give them authority. And in that moment... we have all control.”

Yes. That was definitely in the SparkNotes as a major theme.

“Hmm…” he thinks about it, “you think there’s always a choice?”

“I like to think that there is, yeah.”

“That’s a good answer,” he pauses, “What was your big choice?”

“What?”

“If there’s always a choice… what was yours? Or have you made it yet do you think?”

 _I love that this is his light, I’m-going-to-distract-you-from-passing-out conversation topic._

 _Not like, ‘Gee, Garrett, these are my favorite kinds of sandwiches.’_

“Uhh… to not be alone?”

“Hmm… That’s a… good answer.”

“What about you?”

I finish my water while I wait for him to answer.

“The same, maybe. I think I’ve made more than one.”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure. Maybe,” he laughs, “I don’t really know.”

I think he does.

I think he knows.

“You’re reading Fellowship of the Ring?”

“Yeah…” I hear the lid of the toilet close and see the shape of his shadow sit.

This is ridiculous.

“I’ve never read it before. I’ve never been big on fantasy. Elves and talking tress and… shit.”

I laugh and set the glass down in the corner-edge of the tub and unfold my limbs a little, “What’s wrong with elves?”

He chuckles, “Just not my thing.”

“Fair enough! It’s one of my favorites.”

“Yeah… I like Gandalf.”

“You would.”

He chuckles.

“He’s good,” I say, feeling significantly less dizzy and the thought of Gandalf, of all people, “‘ _Not all those who wander are lost._ ’”

“I like that,” he says quietly.

“Me too.”

After a while, I start to get cold.

I need to get out.

He offers to help, but I tell him I’m fine… because… I…

How embarrassing is that?

I’m like an old, wet geriatric.

I take my time, get my feet under myself and wait, then stand up slowly.

Really slowly.

I’m okay.

I push the curtain back.

Whoa.

I have a hand against the tile, but I’m dizzy, slipping.

“Hey!”

I don’t fall.

My vision’s dark and blurry.

But I feel arms around me, and a chest against mine, cold tile pressed against my back.

And I don’t fall.

“Fuck. Sorry--”

“Don’t apologize. It’s fine.”

He is very strong.

He holds me up, pinning me between himself and the shower wall, until I can do it myself.

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you s-see my penis?”

He’s still pressed against me, and I feel his whole body shake as he laughs, “No. I didn’t.”

“Okay. Good. Because…” I swallow, “because this isn’t how I want,” I can’t help it, I start laughing too, “this isn’t how I want that to happen.”

“It hasn’t… happened yet. Are you okay to…?”

“Yeah.”

He leans back tentatively, and looks up at my face.

He’s actually blushing.

He makes a real show out of keeping his eyes high, looking up at the ceiling as he turns and steps gracefully out of the tub and grabs my towel of the rack, extending it to me without lowering his eyes.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

I get out and make a b-line for my bed.

Sitting there, my hair dripping on my shoulders, I feel a lot of things.

Mild dizziness still being one of them. But, other things too. A lot.

When he follows me in with another towel…

 _I feel more things._

He holds it out to me.

I take it and start drying my hair, leaving it up around my head and shoulders.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Why am I always a mess?” I keep drying, scrubbing the towel into my hair.

“You’re not a mess.”

I laugh and point at my cheek, “Not a mess? Look at me!”

“I am.”

 _Oh, fuck._

 _He is._

“Fen.”

It’s warm in here, and dark except for the one little stupid round IKEA lamp by my bed.

It’s warm.

And safe.

And one of us is not wearing pants.

And we are both very much aware of that.

I hear him swallow.

“How do you feel?”

 _What a question!_

“Much better.”

He nods.

He takes a step closer.

“How much?”

“Much-much better.”

“I…” he’s close enough to touch, close enough to touch me, “I…”

It’s funny how everything changes with the seemingly small ignition of _want._

 _It’s like the chemical reaction of a match being struck._

 _Strike._

 _Flare._

 _Flame._

And it is a chemical reaction. Because with him this close, and with his eyes on me and that dark, black and just a little green through thick lashes, I don’t feel any pain.

 _I’m not dizzy._

 _I’ve never been dizzy._

 _Wisdom tooth?_

 _What wisdom tooth?_

“This is… so not the right time…” his voice has dropped to a different register and I feel it between my lungs.

“It’s so not.”

“Are you… I don’t want to do anything that… I don’t want to hurt you. Your,” he touches his own jaw, a mirror to mine.

I shake my head, “If you can stand the sight of me like this…”

“Stand?”

He bends down, hands digging into the mattress on either side of my towel-wrapped hips.

He kisses me so softly.

He’s being so careful.

And the affection in that kiss is enough to bring tears to the corners of my eyes.

He pulls back.

“Sorry. Sorry--”

“No,” I shake my head, “No. You didn’t… I’m fine. I’m…”

I swallow.

One side of his mouth tugs and he reaches over and pulls the towel around my shoulders off and away, leaving my head exposed.

My hair is a wet tangle of uneven matter curls and thick enough that it still drips cold water down my back.

“Tell me to go and I will.”

I blink, “I don’t want you to go.”

“Tell me to stop and I--”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

He smiles.

“Are we…”

I nod, and I feel water drip down my unswollen cheek, “I think we are, yeah.”

He leans in again, and I feel the heat of his lips, and then his tongue as he chases the drop of water.

I moan and grab his upper arms.

“Fen!”

He kisses the muscle between my neck and my shoulder, and then lightly presses the side of his head against mine, “Is this too… weird?”

I laugh, which is quite a feat with no air in my lungs, “I have a pretty high threshold for weird.”

“Yeah I do too.”

“I just…” I smile, “How swollen am I?”

I feel his smile.

“I don’t want to be vain, but if… if this is the first time we… leave second, I mean, just… I don’t want you to remember my face being…”

“It’s not that swollen,” he says quietly, “really. You think it’s worse than it is.”

My hands are against his sides, and I can feel the speed of his breaths, the shape of his ribs.

“But if you want to stop, we can stop… but… you know, stop me now.”

I smile.

He’s got more self control than I do… but I just heard it give a little.

“What are we… leaving second?”

There is afterall, just a thin layer of white terry cloth between second and third base.

He nods, “I’d like to.”

I let out a long shuddering breath that ruffles his hair.

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“I…”

He kisses my pulse, “Just say it, it’s okay.”

I make a pained noise in my throat, “I can’t suck on anything or I’ll get a dry socket.”

The laugh that erupts out of him takes me by surprise.

He pulls back, and bends with his hands on his thighs, laughing so much..

No.

It’s not even laughing anymore.

It’s a giggle.

And it’s adorable.

He stands up, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes.

“Oh, _fuck it_ , Garrett!”

“So… uh, raincheck?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Because… I mean…” I try to look composed sitting there in my towel, “I want to, and, I… um… I think we’re ready.”

“I think so too.”

“But… not tonight.”

“No. Not tonight.”

“Stay with me tonight, though?”

He nods.

I set up my laptop and start playing _The Royal Tenenbaums_ while Fen hops in the shower himself. I drop my towel and leave it on the floor and pull on a pair of striped pajama bottoms.

Despite feeling so wired earlier, I fall asleep again before all the principle characters are introduced or the water shuts off.

When I wake up, it’s dark in the room.

I’m on my side, which is never how I sleep.

I’m facing Fen.

Who is also on his side.

Facing me.

My arm is stretched out across the pillow.

And under his head.

He’s sleeping on my arm, the solid weight of it resting on my bicep.

He’s not wearing a shirt, and what little light there is from the sliver of moon outside comes in, down, from the window over our heads and his shoulder just looks… perfect.

Smooth.

The white lines look elegant, deliberate and crisp.

Like the rest of him.

I feel his breath on my chest, even and deep and comforting.

We’ve slept in the same bed a handful of times now.

But… barring the air mattress which more or less folded us in together, we’ve kept to our own sides for actual sleeping.

Out of… I don’t know what.

Boundaries.

Some boundary is being crossed here.

I’m okay with that.

I’m really okay.

I bend my arm at the elbow and dig my fingers into his hair.

He smells like my shampoo.

I know this because I’ve pulled him in closer, and my lips are pressed against his forehead, my nose in his hair.

His hand is between our chests, and I hold it in mine.

He’s awake.

“Mmm.”

I smile, lips still against his hairline.

“It’s been a long time since I woke up like this,” he says to the center of my sternum.

I nod, “Me too.”

“Fen?”

“Mmhm?”

“What are you wearing?”

He laughs quietly.

“My boxers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You wear boxers?”

“Err… boxer briefs.”

“Can I…” he looks up at me and I can see him smirking in the dark, “see?”

“It’s dark.”

“I have excellent night vision.”

He sighs and lifts the comforter.

It’s too dark to see anything, but I look anyway.

“Aha!” I say quietly, approvingly, and he lowers the blanket.

“Happy?” he settles back in, scooting closer, his head more against my shoulder than my arm.

“Very.”

His arm is folded up against his chest again, between our bodies.

I feel one crooked finger stroking the hair near the center of my chest… always with the grain.

I trail the tip of one of my fingers lightly along his spine, and when I hit a certain spot just above the small of his back he curls forward and smiles.

“Is that good?”

“Yeah,” he answers, pressing his face against my neck.

I do it again.

He smiles against my throat.

“I feel like we’re doing this all out of order,” I murmur.

He shrugs, “Someone elses order.”

“Hmm.”

We just kind of lay there for a few minutes.

And it’s good.

And then my mouth starts talking.

“Hey, have you ever been in a fight?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Like a fist fight?”

“Yeah.”

“More than once?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I haven’t.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Never.”

“Huh…” his knuckle goes still against me.

“What?”

“I… used to get into a lot of fights.”

I don’t really know what to say to that.

I stroke his shoulder blade with my thumb with a rhythm I try really hard to keep even.

“When I was eighteen, I moved to New York. It wasn’t.. what I thought it would be, but it was better than where I’d been.”

I press my lips to his forehead again and listen, eyes wide in the dark.

“I lived in a shelter for a while. After… I stayed wherever I could. For a night, for a week. Some places were better than others.”

He’s quiet then for a while, and I feel the flex of muscle in his back as he shifts slightly.

“You end up finding yourself in fighting situations pretty regularly when you’re living like that.”

I swallow.

“And a part of me went looking for them, so that didn’t help.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm. Yeah. I was indestructible,” he laughs, then swallows, “You know how it is.”

“I’ve always felt very destructible. My parents had to go to a parent-teacher conference about it when I was in the first grade. I was deeply concerned about mortality in the first grade.”

He kisses the sensitive spot at the corner of my jaw, then lifts his hand and traces a line on his scalp, from hair line to crown, “I have a scar, here. A… fight. I woke up in the emergency room--”

He stops.

Abruptly.

He laughs derisively, “I really know how to ruin a moment, don’t I?”

I shrug, “ _You_ didn’t ruin it. _I_ brought it up.”

“Hmm. Yeah. That’s true.”

He nods, and snuggles in deeper, closer.

We’re not lying flush together, but we’re close to that.

My feet end past his, and I feel his toes against my ankles.

“Are you wearing socks?”

“Yeah. My feet get cold.”

“Mine too.”

“Do you want a Percocet?”

“Nah. I’m good… doesn’t really hurt now,“ I pause, “Do you want one?”

He laughs softly and unfolds his arm, finally, letting his palm rest warmly against the curve of my waist.

“No. I’m good.”

We don’t talk after that.

But it’s comfortable. So, so comfortable.

I have no clue what time it is. None.

I hope that my internal clock will reset when I wake up.

 _But this weird lost day with him?_

 _I’ve really enjoyed it._

Actually. I’ve really enjoyed it a lot.

At some point during the night, I almost wake up and I swear he’s kissing me, so softly.

And I want to wake up the rest of the way. I want to be fully awake with him, now.

I want to kiss him back.

I want to know the story of all of his scars.

I want to hear about every battle he’s ever been in.

And survived.

Because while it hurts some deep rooted part of me that lives in my chest and doesn't have a name… I feel like I’m ready for it.

I’m so ready.

I want to roll over him, and pin him under me in the dark, in my bed, and drive against him hard.

I want to hear him, feel him, say my name.

But my body is so unbelievably, unnaturally tired.

My body just does not cope well with those kinds of drugs.

I want to…

He says something to me… but I can’t hear him.

I’m falling too fast and too deep.

And I fall asleep saying what I think is his name.


	39. Chapter 39

“How have we never discussed this?!”

I shrug, “I don’t know.”

Isabela huffs and folds her arms across her chest, “I wondered why we never did anything for your birthday. No cupcakes. No singing. No nothing. I thought maybe you just didn’t celebrate it, like, a…” she looks over at Andy who is looking decidedly writerly today… and by that I mean disheveled and mildly psychotic, “what’s the religion that doesn’t celebrate birthdays? Not Mormons--”

“You thought I was Mormon?!”

“Jehovah’s Witness,” he answers glumly, not looking up from the Mac.

“Yeah! That’s it,” she looks up at me, “but… you’re a Christmas Eve baby? Tragic.”

“Yeah. It sucked as a kid…” I look at Andy, “What’s up with him?”

She motions for me to follow her towards the pastry case, and says quietly, “He’s past his deadline.”

“Oh!”

She glances over at him, and says quietly, “His heart’s not in it.”

I nod and push around some Danishes.

“Why doesn’t he just…”

“Quit? Write something else?” her mouth quirks, “He’s _contractually obligated._ ”

“Poor Andy.”

The door opens.

It’s 9:05.

I wasn’t sure if this would keep happening.

If he would still come in.

To buy coffee.

But he does.

Every day.

He says he’s addicted to the caffeine now.

“Go on,” Isabela purrs and puts the Danishes I’ve molested back in place.

“Hey!”

He smiles, “Morning.”

I pour his coffee.

“Good morning, Fen,” Isabela says, passing behind him.

“Morning.”

He has money.

“You know,” I say, withholding his coffee, “ _Varric_ even said that you should be getting this on the house at this point.”

“Oh did he?”

“What with you being our artist and everything,” I smile and hand him the cup.

He takes it and gives me the money, “Your artist?”

“Bianca’s,” I look over his shoulder at the photos, “Varric’s thrilled. There’s a lot of interest.”

He smirks, “I’m glad to hear it.”

Two of the photos sold yesterday. Merrill had giddily taken care of the transaction, and the part of me that got all warm and squishy as she boasted to the buyer, a nice middle aged guy with a receding hairline, about how talented the photographer is was not small.

The little green sticker on the bottom of the frame means that they’re off the market.

He sips his coffee and walks over to look at them.

I follow.

“Bela, can you...?”

She combs her fingers through Andy’s messy hair, picks up an empty plate from his table and nods at me.

I stand next to Fen.

“Iceland and Mexico sold, huh?”

I nod.

“They’re _so_ good.”

“Hmm. Who bought them?”

“Uh… don’t remember his name…” I look at him sideways; the smile hidden in the corner of his mouth is almost entirely imperceptible… but I see it, “Do you, uh, wan to… go look at the, uh… uh…” I smile, and look over my shoulder at Isabela who is ringing up a girl who looks to be about fourteen, “Do you want to come in the back and see the paperwork?”

“I do, yeah. If that’s okay,” his voice is low with an edge that’s starting to be familiar… and I feel it in my gut.

“Okay, um, yeah,” I see Isabela roll her eyes at me as I lead him toward the stockroom.

 _I’m really doing this._

 _We’re doing this before ten in the morning._

I click on the light, we walk inside, I shut the door.

He sets his coffee down on an unopened box of vanilla syrup and puts his messenger bag down beside it.

“So, this _paperwork_?”

“Uh…” I grab the clipboard from off the wall, “his name is _Orsino_.”

I gasp as he pushes me gently against the door, hands against my chest, body pressed against mine.

He smells like coffee and December and morning and Fen.

“Is that a first or a last name?” that edge is still there, a rough warm sound, and I curl down and into it.

“I don’t know.”

He chuckles, holding my face and keeping his mouth just enough away from mine to talk, “You don’t know? It’s right there, Garrett.”

 _Brain doesn’t work now._

 _No brain here._

 _Only your mouth._

 _Your smile._

 _Lips._

“I don’t remember.”

He smiles.

I’m bold, and driven, like I’ve got tunnel vision, and…

 _With his fingers twisted in my hair, I taste his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue._

“Mmm...”

He growls and _thrusts_ against me, pushing me into the door, and the immediacy of it startles us both.

“What are we…” he pulls me down, thumbs pressed to my cheekbones, kissing me hard, _dangerous_ , and it’s hard to stay quiet, and I feel a moan stuck in my chest like a physical obstruction, “Be careful what you start, _Hawke_.”

I’m completely, irrevocably hard.

I can feel the tension in his body as he stands there against me, strung tight.

The blood has left my head.

I’m reckless.

I reach down and smooth a hand over his ass, pulling him in closer against me, closing my hand enough to feel the muscle flex. _Perfect._

His forehead falls against my chest.

“What if…” I swallow, and move my other hand between our bodies, tracing the shape of him through his pants.

The line of his cock.

His… cock.

I still haven’t seen it, but I have all kinds of ideas about what it looks like. I’ve felt it, plenty. Through cotton.

I think it’s perfect, and that idea has haunted and so improved my masturbatory life.

Hard and curved and, oh god, _thick_.

Hard… because of _me_.

And real against my fingers through just a couple layers of fabric, and zipper and…

And here in the storeroom at Bianca’s.

 _At work._

 _At, like, 9:20 in the morning._

“ _Garrett…_ ” he growls and his hands curl into fists against the wall behind me.

“Yes?”

“Unless you’re actually prepared to do this, _here_ , for the sake of my sanity… _stop_.”

I seriously consider it.

But when, like something out of nightmare… one of those I show up to take the SAT’s naked kind of nightmares, when I hear low purr of Varric’s voice through the door behind me I am snapped back into reality.

“Yes, it _is_ exciting!” I hear Isabela say too loudly, “They just went in the back to look over the paperwork, _Varric._ I’ll go get them.”

“Dammit,” I sigh shakily.

“Fuck,” he pushes back from me and tries, in vain, to adjust himself into decency, “I hate you a little bit right now.”

Hard as a rock.

I have an apron on, so… at least I have that.

He doesn’t have an apron.

 _Just those black pants… that… oh, god, those pants--_

“I’m sorry!”

Isabela knocks lightly, “I’m so, so sorry…” she whispers.

“Your bag,” I say, plumbing the the years and years of experience I had at hiding erections.

He picks up his messenger bag and slips it on, crossing the strap in front of his chest so that the bag itself covers his hips.

And crotch.

He picks up his coffee, “Again. This _hate_ that I’m feeling?”

I smile goofily, “I hope it’ll pass.”

Isabela cracks the door.

“Your hair,” he says, reaching up, trying to smooth it back into place.

He gives up quickly, and laughs silently, “Lost cause.”

“Well fuck it then,” I laugh. And kiss him quick, one last time, before walking out of the stock room separately.

Varric’s one of those all-seeing, all-knowing types.

The quirked eyebrow he directs at me literally has me blushing, but he pulls Fen over and they stand there talking about the photographs, discussing future opportunities.

I dart back over to the counter with Isabela to serve the sudden line of customers that have popped up.

My hands are shaking a little.

I wonder if everyone can tell.

I look over at Fen. His face is a perfect mask of calm, but the way that he’s white knuckling the strap of his bag gives him away.

“Sweetheart!”

I look up.

 _Mom’s_ in the line.

Perfect.

She waits her turn and then makes a fuss over how beautiful Isabela is, telling her that she looks like a fertility idol (which, coming from her is a _huge_ compliment).

“Hopefully I’m looking a little more svelte than the Woman of Willendorf,” Isabela holds her own hips and grins.

“ _And_ she knows her fertility idols! Oh, Garrett, your friends are just wonderful.”

“What can I get for you?” Isabela coos.

“Just a coffee, dear.”

“Don’t let her pay,” I say to Bela.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, kitten.”

I look over at Fen and Varric.

He’s smirking at me.

 _Hopefully he’s over that hate._

 _I’m hoping that smirk means that he is._

It’s like worlds colliding when Varric introduces himself to my mother.

She’s completely charmed by him, not that I blame her.

 _He’s damn charming._

He asks her what brings her in.

“Needed a little pick me up. Finishing up the Christmas shopping today…”

“You’re doing better than me,” he says, so charming, “I haven’t even started yet.”

They laugh.

Fen’s standing next to me.

“What are you doing tonight?” he whispers, low, and only I hear him.

I turn to him.

“I think that would be lovely!” Mom exclaims to Varric, and I look over my shoulder at her, “A tree in here? Yes. We’re going tonight. Garrett and I.”

I open my mouth and look at Fen, pained, “Buying a Christmas tree.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Varric says, “I’m buying. We’ll all go. It’ll be more fun that way. Isabela, what are you doing tonight?”

She glances over at Andy, then back, “No big plans.”

“Oh, Andy!” Mom exclaims and he looks up at her, “I didn’t even see you there!”

He smiles weakly.

Varric comes up with this plan quickly while Mom fusses over Andy, and it becomes more and more elaborate at a rate that is truly boggling.

Dinner and the Christmas tree far, all on him. Mom puts up a fuss when he offers to buy her tree as well… but gives in pretty easily when he touches her arm.

“Apparently, I’m doing _this_ tonight. _Please_ come with me to this,” I say to Fen.

He laughs and rolls his head back, “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure…”

I try, “It’ll be fun! And, um… after that… uh… do you, would you… maybe want to, uh…”

“Just spit it out, kitten,” Isabela whispers behind me sweetly.

Fen laughs and rubs his chin with his thumb.

“Come over after.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

…

He spared no expense on the dinner.

Fancy tapas.

 _Expensive_.

Lots of wine.

When I heard what restaurant he was taking us to, _Vincento’s_ , I wore a tie.

I mean… I’d have felt bad not wearing a tie.

No one else wore a tie.

Merrill had kept tugging on it.

She really likes ties.

The food was amazing, the owner very obliging.

And talkative.

It was fun, and, I haven’t been out anywhere with Mom for a long time in a social way. It was nice seeing her like that again.

Te only person missing is Andy, who is at home and, by Isabela’s account, doing more sulking than writing… but, still, some writing is happening… her doggy-bagged left-overs are, I suspect for him and the thought makes me smile.

But I’d say that about… 40 percent of my brain was there, engaged at the dinner.

The rest of it?

 _The warmth of Fen’s body sitting next to me._

 _The way he holds a knife._

 _The muscle in his jaw chewing._

 _The line of his throat, swallowing._

 _Swallowing._

I inhale my food faster than normal, fast enough that Mom comments on it and offers me a TUMS because she thinks I’m going to regret eating that fast.

...

Fen and I arrived at the Christmas tree farm before anyone else.

Standing by the string light-lit sign in coats and beanies, I just want to pull him in close.

You know.

For warmth.

His hands are buried in his pockets, scarf pulled up high, and he looks much colder than I feel.

 _Oh, fuck it._

I pull him in.

He laughs, but lets me.

Isabela and Merrill arrive next.

And then Mom.

And then Varric.

It’s a whole thing.

“You said you know the owners?” Varric asks my mom as we walk through the candy cane gates.

“Oh, yeah. I know Eamon from way back,” she smiles, “He’s been ill… lately. Poor man. Ahh, there we go.”

A younger woman near the little wooden house where the register is leads us to the larger trees.

We meander, while Mom and Varric take tree selection very seriously.

Isabela and Merrill dart away on their own, gloved hand in hand.

I’m…

The smell of pine and peppermint and cold air is overwhelming.

 _It’s Christmas._

It hits me for the first time.

I have a lot of feelings about this time of year.

I always have…

We’re alone in the trees.

Just Fen and…

I want him.

It feels like, in the cold, that want is even more clarified.

So clear.

Feeling giddy, I reach for his face, holding it between my gloved hands.

His eyes are closed.

And he looks happy.

His arms are around my waist.

“I feel like we’re in Narnia,” I say, just before I kiss him.

“You…” his voice is thick, but calm, “always know exactly the right thing to say.”

I smile and kiss him, sweetly.

But when he kisses me back, I feel something change, coil.

 _Want._

We’re alone.

“I’m so… _tonight_ , I…”

I don’t remember words, but he nods between my hands.

“I can’t wait to… feel you,” he sighs, “I--”

“Teagan?!”

A shrill female voice calls out past the thick layers of trees.

“Teagan?!”

“Here I am!”

We stand together, hidden, and listen to these disembodied voices pass us.

“These people want these two trees,” the woman says, heavily accented.

Fen’s hands press into the small of my back, “How… not that I’m not enjoying this… but… how much longer are we going to be with everyone?”

The edge is in his voice.

I respond to it like one of Pavolov’s dogs.

“Let’s just leave now,” I kiss him, “They don’t need us. We can just--”

“Garrett? Sweetheart?”

I sigh. “Yes?”

She wants us both to help carry the trees to the cars.

“Not long,” I groan, kissing him with a new kind of desperation, “Oh, god… I hope it’s not long.”

…

Varric buys four trees that night for an astounding amount of money.

I’m sweaty and tired and there’s sap in my hair and on my neck by the time Fen, Teagan, Varric and I have lugged four tress from the lot and lashed them onto the tops of cars.

“You go on,” Isabela smiles at me from Merrill’s passenger seat, “We’ll help Varric get Bianca’s tree all set up.”

“Yeah?” I’m panting a little, and my breath goes up in white puffs.

“Yes,” she leans out, curling a finger to beckon me down.

I bend and put my hands on the door.

Merrill’s inside smiling at me.

Isabela kisses me, “Go. Help your mom. And then take him home and _fuck him._ ”

I laugh, and look over my shoulder. He’s just getting into my car.

“Shh!! We’re not there yet, but--”

“Kitten, do _something_ then. Because… it’s been so _deeply_ sexually frustrating watching the two of you all night.”

“She’s right, Garrett,” Merrill leans into view, “ _very_ frustrating.”

I sigh, and check the ropes on their car before slapping the roof and turning back to my own car. She rolls up her window and Merrill starts the car.

I’m at my car, hand on the handle.

Merrill honks at me.

Startled, I look back, peering into their dark car.

Isabela’s gesturing what I can only vaguely see as a very enthusiastic blow job pantomime, hand stroking air toward her mouth, tongue pressing rhythmically against the inside of her cheek.

Then she gives me a thumbs up and they drive away.

…

Mom’s place is a blur.

I know we got her tree inside.

I know we did.

Together.

I know we put it in the living room.

I know that she couldn’t decide if she wanted it in front of the window or not.

And I know that I was so frustrated that I finally just said that there, right there, was the most perfect place for any Christmas tree ever.

I know that we politely refused hot chocolate.

And I know I drove over the speed limit on the way to my house.

But it was a clear night.

So clear.

And, dammit, I _needed_ to.

We leave my tree on the roof of the Saturn.

It can fucking wait.

 _I can’t._

 _He can’t._

My hands shake as I unlock the front door.

It’s very warm inside.

I’m very warm.

He’s pulling off his gloves.

I’m breathing heavy.

I need to check on Bradley, who is slamming against the back door like a battering ram.

I pet him, check his food and water, and then much to his dismay, leave him outside.

When I come back in, Fen’s out of his coat, pulling off his beanie.

And I can see the tension in him, in all of him.

And he’s breathing fast as well.

I can’t look away from him, so with my eyes on his face, I start unbuttoning my coat.

He moves fast, pushing my hands out of the way and undoing them faster, and I kiss him. He’s pushing the thick black wool off my shoulders, down my arms, and laughing against my mouth when the sleeves bunch stubbornly at my wrists.

He peels one glove off of my hand, turning it inside out.  
I take the other one off.

He wraps his hand in my tie.

“Bedroom.”

I remember that word.

It’s one of the few words I do remember.

 _Bedroom._

 _Skin._

 _Yes._

 _Fen._

Third base.

That’s what we’re doing here.

In my bedroom.

I remember the way he sounded that night, when we first… we we talked about bases.

The edge in his voice, saying once word.

One bizarrely clinical word.

 _Oral._

And I…

We’re here. Now.

We are leaving second.

We are leaving second and his fingers are strong against my belt, the button of my jeans, the zipper.

And the jeans drop.

The shoes and socks are still on.

The briefs are still on.

Shirt and tie, still on.

But as far as I’m concerned, I’m off second.

His mouth is so hot and so perfect and I never want to not be kissing him.

“Ahh…” I pull back and reach down, nearly losing my balance as I start frantically and pointlessly tugging at the laces of my Chucks.

He watches me for a second and then bends, fast, crouching in front of me and gently untying my shoes.

He puts a hand under the back of my left knee, and I lift that foot.

He pulls off my shoe.

And my sock.

And he kisses my kneecap, eyes closed and lips warm, before turning to the other leg.

He takes off my other shoe and sock, kisses that knee and then looks up at me.

“Fuck, Fen…”

His breathing hitches.

His hands are against the backs on my thighs, which somehow miraculously are still holding me upright, “Take that off.”

I nod fast, and unbutton.

I pull at the tie too hard and it gets stuck.

I feel his chuckle as he stands up, hands calm on the tie, pulling the knot free.

Loose.

And pushing the shirt off.

The skin of his palms on my bare arms, sliding, feeling.

“So many layers,” his fingers are under the bottom of the wife beater I’m wearing.

“I have to,” I say, delirious, “with a white shirt like that, my chest hair shows through if I don’t wear something underneath.”

“Hmm.”

He lifts it off.

Away from my body.

He’s fully clothed.

And the feeling of his clothes, buttons and structure, against my skin…

It’s amazing but I need…

“I need…”

“Is this okay, Garrett?”

“Do you really need to ask me that?” I pant.

“Yes. I do.”

I nod, “Yes. This is… fuck, this is so far past okay I don’t even know what I’d call it.”

He chuckles.

He touches me, lightly but without hesitation, his is hand hot through the briefs.

My world breaks apart.

I’m kissing his neck, biting his shoulder trough his shirt, and moaning and I can hear myself but I don’t... I don’t sound like me.

“I…” I kiss his jaw, “Take… take this off.”

He nods.

I undo his belt while he unbuttons his shirt.

He slips out of his shoes, fast, and as he’s pulling the shirt away from his chest, I unzip his pants and let them slide down past his hips, the weight of his phone and his wallet in the pockets weighing them down.

He steps out of them.

I bend and kiss him, skin against skin, and this is familiar except for the new thinness of the barrier between us.

No pants.

Just underwear.

He steps back, sitting on the bed, and I am fascinated by the play of muscles as he bends and pulls both his socks off.

And I’m on him again.

On my bed.

Over him.

I am…

Between his legs.

I don’t even exist anymore.

I think.

Or… I must exist, because I’m thinking about how I don’t exist.

So I do.

But with his cock against mine.

And just cotton between us.

I grind against him, and he thrusts back up against me.

And we meet.

I gasp.

He pushes me back, one hand against my chest, flat.

He rolls me onto my back and follows, pinning me under himself. Hips against my hips, hand twisted in my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my throat.

He’s incredible.

Better than me.

I’m… I’m inadequate here.

He kisses my Adam’s apple and I moan his name.

And says something back, but I can’t hear him past the blood in my ears.

He lets go of my hair.

And kisses lower. The center of my chest.

My nipple.

I crane my neck to watch him.

Teeth close around me, delicately… he has so much control… and his shoulders.

My god, his _shoulders_.

The way he’s holding himself over me, everything is in his shoulders.

Broad and smooth and tattooed…

I touch them and his eyes snap up to me.

I take off his glasses, fold them, put them on my nightstand.

He blinks slowly, watching me.

“Okay?”

He nods, kissing my nipple again.

And then teeth, again.

 _Teeth._

 _And suction_

“ _Oh._ ”

I feel my hips twist up, of their own volition, towards him.

He smiles and presses down against me with his hand. Holding me in place, he kisses further, lower, down my belly, kissing my ribs, following the thick trail of hair to the waistband of my briefs.

I feel his breath on my cock through the fabric.

I look down as his fingers bend and grip the elastic with more self control than I have ever hand in my life, he stops.

He looks up at me, hair thick and white and over his eyes.

I reach down with a shaking hand and push it out of the way.

So I can see him and he can see me.

“Okay?”

I nod, “Yes. _Please_.”

He smiles, a real wide honest smile and kisses me once through the fabric.

I can’t breathe.

He pulls.

And pulls. Down my thighs and off.

And I’m out and free, hard and red, and exposed and--

 _Fucking hell._

I watch him.

I watch him gently, so carefully, wrap fingers around the base of my cock.  
He strokes up, with such a perfect grip, and then down, and… I swear, for the rest of my life, I don’t know that there will be a more erotic, more perfect sight than that moment, the head of my cock there, exposed as my foreskin glides down with his hand and the tip of his tongue, so perfect and pink, finding me.

I make a sound… I don’t know what it is.

He looks up at me, eyes hot and black as he shifts his body forward and opens his mouth, lips… those perfect, wide, smirking lips spreading around me.

And the _heat_ of his mouth.

“I’m not going to last long,” I pant, desperate, gripping the sheets near my hips.

“That’s okay,” he says, pausing for a moment over me, looking at me, reaching with his hand around me, wet and tight and…

“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!”

He strokes me, wet skin sliding on wet skin and buries his face against me, kissing my balls, licking, sucking one, then the other so gently into his mouth, against the hot smooth curl of his tongue.

I showered today, before dinner.

I trimmed… I mean… I…

I did jerk off then, too.

Not that it’s going to help me last no--

 _Oh, fuck!_

I curl up, reaching for him in warning because I’ve completely forgotten how to speak.

His lips are pressed against the head of my cock again, opening, sliding down, cheeks hollowed and…

 _Fuck._

“Fen!”

He hums around me.

I think I die.

I just… cease to be.

In one white hot flare of a moment, in his mouth, in the sound of his throat humming and in the vibration of being so close to him… I just stop existing.

And it’s heaven.

I don’t believe in heaven.

But I find it.

Then.

There.

Gasping with my eyes closed and my hair curled and matted against my forehead with sweat and Fen’s mouth around me--

 _Heaven._

I open my eyes, and look down at him.

I have to look.

Because in the time it took to come back into being, I’ve convinced myself that there is no way that I am this lucky.

There’s no way this is really happening.

He’s wiping at the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

“Sorry… I should have…” I swallow and lose the fight to hold my head up, “I…”

He’s above me, chest to my chest.

I feel his heart against mine.

“You swallow?”

“Sometimes.”

“Yeah, me too.”

He’s hot.

And hard against me.

And my eyes open, and I…

I kiss him.

He makes a funny little noise in his throat, one I don’t recognize.

It’s sweet, such a sweet noise that I kiss him again, deeper, trying to get him to make it again.

I taste myself and him.

I like doing this.

I always have.

I like kissing, after, and tasting… me…

 _Sebastian called me a jizz-narcissist._

 _He was one to talk._

His eyes are closed, and I feel him start to find a rhythm against me, rocking gently.

“What do you…” I moan, “ _want_ me to do.”

“I, uh…” he exhales and his eyes open just a sliver, faintly green, “Touch me. First.”

I nod.

He eases back, rolling to the side.

I follow him.

I touch everywhere.

Everything.

Everything new to me… I need to touch it to know it.

From the chest down, I touch everything, kiss and feel and… memorize as best I can.

He smells so unbelievably good to me.

I put his arm up.

He’s smooth, again in such sharp contrast to me… but he does have hair here, under his arms, black but light.

I kiss him there, tasting and smelling sweat and him and it feels…

I mean… it feels like home.

The realization makes me smile, and he feels it, looking down at me.

“What?”

“You smell good.”

He smirks, crookedly.

I can’t say, _your armpit feels like home._

I just can’t.

Maybe I’ll tell him later.

I kiss down his ribs, across the firm flat stretch of his stomach, I feel the muscles flex with each deep breath ( _he’s is significantly better shape than me…_ ).

I look up at him, overwhelmed by the smell of him and the taste of his skin, but cognizant enough to know that for him, with him, I need to ask.

I don’t want to be a guy that doesn’t ask.

He nods, wordlessly, and I pull down his shorts.

I was always a kid with a vivid imagination.

Sometimes I’d imagine things for so long, in such detail and perfection that when whatever it was actually came to fruition… be it a birthday present, or a school project or something, the reality would be disappointing.

This is not one of those times.

Fen’s cock is perfect.

Dark, curved gently, artfully, and not as long as me, but thick… and he has hair here as well, dark but light, so soft, and…

I feel his body tense up.

I’ve been staring at him, dumbly, and I realize I have no idea how long.

 _If it was too long…_

 _That seems a little creepy._

But now he’s tense.

And not a good tense.

I pull back.

I crawl up to the pillows, next to him, and stretch out.

He doesn’t look at me.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” he swallows.

“You are…” I don’t have the word, I want to say something really memorable, something personal… “so goddamn sexy.”

He laughs.

I smile and kiss his temple, tasting his sweat.

We kiss for a little bit, deep, and he takes my hand, in his, and wraps it around himself.

I groan, and he thrusts into my hand.

“Show me how,” I pant, ragged.

He nods, and covering my hand with his own, starts stroking.

He’s so smooth.

When he guides my thumb up to the head of is cock to dip into the pre-cum, I kiss him, biting his lip harder than I mean to.

He shows me what he likes, what pressure, the speed…

“Is this what you want?” I ask.

His eyes are shut, tight, brows knit, “Yes. This.”

“Is this how you want to come?”

He nods.

But the angle is weird, and my wrist doesn’t bend quite the right way.

“I want to… let me…” I pull back from him, and lay on my back, “Lay on top of me.”

He looks at me, chest slick with sweat, shoulders rocking with every breath.

“Your back to my front… the… angle is better.”

I see something flit behind his eyes.

“What?”

“I don’t like… I don’t like to be…” he winces, “no penetration.”

I swallow.

“Okay. Yeah. Of course… no… I… Third Base. And... yeah...”

He shakes his head and smiles at me, encouragingly, then scans my body.

His hand is wrapped around himself, those inked fingers.

I watch him.

“I won’t ever do anything you don’t want me to.”

He nods, and crawls over, somewhat awkwardly positioning himself on top of me, his back slick and pressed tight against my chest, the back of his neck curling and fitting perfectly against the dip above my collarbone.

He wraps one of my hands around his cock, the other gently around his balls.

I gasp as his hands cover each of mine.

And he starts moving.

God… I feel it in his whole body.

I feel it as sharply and powerfully as if it were my own.

His head snaps back, jaw open, and me mumbles something close to my ear, completely lost in the sensation.

He squeezes tighter around the fingers around his cock.

 _More._

He moves faster, stroking with quicker shorter strokes.

Always up over the head.

And down.

Always.

With every stroke.

God, he’s electric.

Thighs.

Spine.

Arms.

Cock.

I feel his heart through his back and in the pulse in his neck at the same time.

I feel like he’s just all heartbeat.

“God, fuck, Fen,” I whine.

His answer is a deep, low sound… maybe in a different language, maybe not.

His heels dig into the bed between my legs and he thrusts up.

He’s close.

I think he’s close.

“Are you close?”

He nods, letting go of the hand on his balls to reach up and bury it in my hair, holding my head close to his.

He says something that I know for sure isn’t in English ( _or I’m pretty sure anyway_ ) and his fingers in my hair dig in harder, harder.

“Oh… oh…”

He’s tense everywhere, hot and his neck cranes up and away, turning his face away from mine.

“Oh, fuck! _Fuck!_ ”

He comes hard, on his chest and his stomach and my hand.

“Oh, fuck…” I echo, stroking him lightly through the aftershocks, until he pushes at my wrist telling me to stop, it’s too sensitive.

His head falls back against my shoulder.

He laughs, a full body release. Giddy. Content.

He lays there on me, sagging bonelessly.

“Hey, Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re heavier than you look.”

He exhales a little half chuckle and slides off of me, laying on his back and looking down at the aftermath.

“Do you have a… Kleenex, or…”

He looks at me.

I bite my lip.

“Or…”

“Is it… would it be okay, if I… you can say no…” I look at his chest and stomach, “Can I?”

He smiles.

Messy hair.

Swollen lips.

Dark eyes.

“Yeah…”

I scoot down, staying to his side, and take my time, licking him clean. He tastes so good, so different from me by kind of the same.

He’s quiet while I do it, but I feel his breath hitch.

I hesitate, looking at his cock, which is just now starting to go soft.

I look up at him.

“Can I?”

He nods.

And I close my lips around the head gently.

I’m being so careful… I know he’s sensitive.

He sighs above me.

I lay back next to him.

He kisses me possessively, tasting.

We lay back.

We don’t touch.

It’s comfortable, but we study each other.

It’s funny… the way that this makes things that were impersonal personal, and things that were personal impersonal.

I think we’re both trying to see what, if anything, this has changed in the other.

I smile.

And so does he.

“That was one hell of a third base,” I say finally, my throat thick.

He nods, “Yes it fucking was.”

“Are you okay?”

He looks at me, seriously, “I’m so far past okay, Garrett…” he trails off and smiles.

I kiss him softly.

When we part, he looks down at me, “Again?”

I shrug, “ _Three_ years, Fen.”

He chuckles privately.

“But, I mean… I’m too tired to do anything about it.”

“Welcome to your late twenties,” he yawns, grinning, “it’s all downhill from here.”

“Oh really?” I watch as he closes his eyes, and rolls over, his back to me, “Are you downhill from me then, old man?”

He nods, “Mmhmm...”

I take the hint and, after turning off the light, curl up behind him.

He just…

I can’t get over how well he fits there.

I’m in a haze.

Full of endorphins and…

And that wasn’t even…

 _Home._

That was just Third.

Jesus.

I stretch my arm under the pillow and out in front of him, holding his side with my other hand.

When I wake up in the morning, we haven’t moved.

Except that his hand is curled into mine, out in front.


	40. Chapter 40

“I’m just going to put this right _here_.”

Mid-foam art, I give Isabela a look.

I hope that it’s an effective, _please, stop_ look, but the fact that she looks at my face, laughs, says, "Oh, that face!" and pats my cheek tells me that it was, uh, less than effective.

“What is it?” Fen looks down at the piece of paper between us on the counter.

“The deadline to sign up is _today_ , kitten…” she says to me, standing behind me and holding arms, “Have you been working out?”

“Uhh…” I sigh as she continues to squeeze my arms like she’s testing them for ripeness, “No?”

 _I haven’t, really._

 _Except for… I mean…_

 _I consider fooling around to be a kind of working out._

 _My heart rate is elevated._

 _I get endorphins._

 _I get sweaty._

 _Best work out ever? Yes._

Fen picks up the barista competition flyer, reads it and looks over the top of it at me, “You haven’t said anything about this.”

“I…” I shrug, focusing on his coffee, “I mean… Java Shock dominates every year. Without fail.”

“Java Shock?”

“Yeah… the uh, the coffee house on High Street?”

“Ah.”

It’s Sunday, and busy. A line is already forming behind him.

I hand him his breva and he takes it carefully, then looks at the foam.

He smiles.

 _It’s a foam panda bear kind of Sunday._

He takes the flyer and his coffee and sits down at a momentarily empty table by the window and I’m swamped for the next twenty minutes.

By the time I make it over to him, I’m bone tired.

He looks up at me from _Return of the King_.

I reach for his empty cup.

“Are you going to enter?” he asks quietly.

“Hmm?”

He’s avoiding my eyes, but pushes the flyer across the table at me, “You’re really talented, Garrett.”

“In the medium of _coffee_ \--” I say, trying to sound self-deprecating.

“You’re talented, Garrett.”

He looks at me.

“I…”

He shrugs, “Or don’t. It’s up to you, but, I’ve _been_ to Java Shock… I was unimpressed. I… think you’d do really well.”

“When did you go to Java Shock?”

“I went there for a while… when I was searching for the right coffee place to be a regular at,” he smirks.

“And _Bianca’s_ won out over Java Shock, huh?” I say goofily.

“Yeah. She did.”

I don’t entirely know what possesses me to do it.

 _We’re not…_

 _He’s not a PDA guy._

 _I don’t really know if I’m a PDA guy or not. Seb was always really hot and hot about it. Like… either nothing at all, or… like… we’re going to be arrested for doing this near a school zone._

 _Like a lot of things. I’m figuring it out. Now._

But I bend down and kiss him, quick and light.

And he lets me, lips curling against mine.

I expected him to feel tense…

But he’s not tense.

He feels… good. Relaxed.

He feels like Sunday morning.

…

“What made you change your mind?”

It's a Monday night and Andy’s cradling a $50 silicone whisk in his hands and looking at it as if it might posses the answer all his life’s problems.

I sip my mall hot chocolate (okay but not great, a little too gritty), “It’ll be good for Bianca’s… I mean, I probably won’t win, but I…” I smile, “I think I’ll do _well_.”

“Should I buy this?”

He holds up the whisk.

“Do you have a whisk already?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you _like_ your whisk?”

“You know, G, I’ve never really spent too much time thinking about it…” he sets it back down and picks up a silicone basting brush, “I _don’t_ have one of these though.”

“I don’t think anyone does.”

He laughs.

We came to this snooty kitchenware store because he needed to get out of the house and away from a mostly finished _Justice_ manuscript.

And because he, apparently, really likes snooty, unnecessary kitchenwares.

 _Me… I believe in the teachings of Alton and never buy anything that can’t be used for multiple purposes; So sayeth Alton Brown, so doth Garrett Hawke._

He looks better than he did in the midst of what we are now referring to his Justice-Meltdown.

Like a weight has lifted over the last few days.

A salesgirl comes by and asks him if he has any questions, and I see the charm turn on.

 _Flirty Andy, when he’s fully engaged the Flirt-Mode has, like, a tangible gravitational pull._

I step back, out of range, looking at a rack of over-priced oven mitts and watch.

The salesgirl, a cute little blonde alt girl with black-ink half sleeves, offers to show him the new line, which apparently has a whisk he just won’t believe.

He tucks his hair behind his ears and follows her, giving me a look over his shoulder as he goes.

I set down my hot chocolate on the shelf and pull out my phone.

No new messages.

 _I feel the need to text him._

 **How is it?**

Tonight he’s at the warehouse shooting a new play. He wasn’t looking forward to it. Not one bit.

Last night he’d tried to explain the plot to me in bed and finally gave up, laughing and saying that it had something to do with two rivals vying for a kingship in a fictional subterranean civilization… but both were awful choices and that it was, ultimately, just three hours of frustration, boredom, and vague political intrigue.

As annoyed as he was, I love the way his voice sounds in bed.

Lying on his back or his side… it’s different.

Like a shield that’s normally up is let down.

I haven’t been getting as much sleep as I’m used to because of it… but I couldn’t care less.

Sure, I’m a little punchy.

I’m drinking more coffee.

I drank so much coffee yesterday that I had heart palpitations.

And it’s really hard to get up early for work--

 _But… I think it’d be hard to get out a bed with him in it no matter how much sleep I’d gotten the night before._

I smile.

My phone vibrates.

 **grating. 1 hour into a 3 hour show. kill me now, hawke.**

I laugh.

 _I like it when he calls me Hawke._

I’m texting him back when Andy comes back, alone, with a bag in his hand and a smile.

“What’d you buy?”

He sighs, “A _$70_ whisk that, she swears, will change everything.”

“ _She?_ ”

“Velanna.”

I pick up my hot chocolate, “Did you get her number?”

He smiles, “Maybe.”

“Well, now that your whisk situation is under control,” I grimace, “you’re still feeling up to this?”

He nods enthusiastically, “Hell yes I am.”

I sigh.

“Let’s go get the women then. Ugh… I _don’t_ understand you three.”

When I told the three of them via text that I would be free tonight if they wanted to hang out, they had replied, separately, instantly… and when given the choice of what they wanted to do…

“You mother is magnificent,” he says, throwing an arm up around my shoulders, “we love her. Almost as much as we love you.”

They wanted to hang out at my mom’s house.

…

She spread out a blanket on the living room floor and that’s where the four of them are sitting.

I am sitting on the couch, because of my tailbone, with a mostly devoured bowl of curry in my lap.

“He _is_ very dashing,” Mom says, patting Andy’s knee, “but I’m not really looking. I’m perfectly content to just…” she waves her hand, “not date.”

“Oh, Leandra,” Isabela tears off half a naan, “but… aren’t you going mad?”

Mom looks up at me, “No. I’m… _happy_. And I have battery operated devices to stave off insanity,” _I try to pretend that she didn’t say 'devices'… plural_ “Besides, dating is _awful_ … I got so lucky with Malcolm! Found him early… then, _very_ quickly got pregnant with Garrett. Total shock to us both!” she laughs, “back in the dark ages, no one bothered to tell me that antibiotics and the pill didn’t mix.”

“You mean that our sweet baby Garrett was a surprise?” Isabela asks, grinning and licking curry off of her thumb.

“Oh, god yes! Completely unplanned. God, I didn’t want babies then! Oh, my parents were furious…” she smiles warmly at me, “ _but_ , I wouldn’t take back any of that… not the--”

“Mom, _no_!”

“—syphilis that put us both on the antibiotics, not my parent’s wrath…” she covers her heart with her hand, “because I ended up marrying that man, which I might otherwise have not done, and having this beautiful boy… and then two other beautiful babies… and I haven’t been out there for almost thirty years. Your whole lives! No…” she smiles, “with my luck, I’d end up finding some horrible, deadbeat… or a cannibal or, a… Jeffrey Dahmer or something.”

I swallow more curry even though I’m already full to bursting.

 _She doesn’t want to date._

 _She’s not interested._

 _Because she’s still completely in love with Dad._

The curry gets stuck by the huge emotional knot in my chest.

I cough.

Merrill hops up next to me and hits my back helpfully.

“Ow! Your little fists are hard,” I look at her, “Thanks.”

“Anytime, Garrett,” she says seriously.

I’m genuinely emotional. Vulnerable, even.

It’s one of those strange moments were I feel like I’m sitting there and seeing my mom not as Mom, but as one adult looking at another adult and understanding.

That kind of hole, left by someone...

We have a moment.

Dad would love it.

But he’d love the next moment more.

Because he had a real wicked sense of humor and loved watching us squirm.

“But _I’m_ not the Hawke sleeping with someone new and cute and exciting!” she beams.

I squirm.

“That’s very true,” Andy sits up, folding his legs, “and he’s been stingy on the details.”

It’s an ambush.

A loving-ambush.

But still.

“Stingy! Really?” I look at Andy, then at Mom. “ _Really?_ ”

“Oh, come on, kitten…” Isabela rests her head on my knee, looking up at me, “We have been good and left you alone about it for almost a _week_ ”

“A week?!” Mom looks at me, dawning realization sliding into place, “The night of the Christmas trees? Was that when you… _oh_ … that explains why both of you were so pinched when you were here.”

 _Pinched._

“You could have just _said_ something, sweetheart! Jesus… I wouldn’t have kept you!”

I heave a dramatic sigh and let my head fall back against the couch. I stare up at the ceiling.

“We…” _this is my actual real life_ “we haven’t… _Really?_ We’re on third.”

“Third!” I know that Isabela’s sneering without seeing her face, “Third what? Third base? What is this, eleventh grade?!”

“Oh… I think it’s sweet!” Merrill says, patting my head, “You’re so sweet, you two. Oh… the puppy-eyes he gives you…”

My head snaps up, “ _Puppy-eyes_?”

They’re all so tickled.

And… I mean… I think they should be. Or they have a right to be.

Without them, this wouldn’t have happened.

They are my syphilis.

Or maybe my antibiotic.

Either way… they were there every awkward step of the way…

And now?

“What… stingy…” I laugh, “Gah! I’m going to regret this… and I reserve to the right no not answer anything, at my discretion! What do you want to know?”

 _At least he’s not here._

 _Not that I’d really put it past them to do something like this with him present…_

“Cut or Uncut?” Isabela throws down.

“Veto! Unless you mean me--”

“He’s uncut, dear,” Mom offers, “Barbaric practice… I don’t understand it… Andy, are you--”

“Uncut,” Andy and Isabela answer comfortably at the same time.

“Oh good.”

I sigh.

“What…” Andy’s smirking, “Define Third Base for me.”

“Uhh…” understand… my mom is not like other moms… she worked for a women’s health clinic for years, directing a safe sex outreach program in high schools… and when I came out, she started trying to learn as much about gay sex as possible…

 _This is my life_ …

This is, I mean I don’t want to bandy around the word normal… but… this is far less weird than I logically know if should be, “Uh… up to and including… oral.”

“Ah.”

“Is he what you thought he’d be like?” Merrill asks me, “I don’t mean… well, not strictly speaking about what he’s like in bed… but… is he what you thought he’d be like?”

 _I want to say yes._

 _Better than, even._

 _More… something._

 _‘Complicated’ isn’t the right word._

 _But he is that, too._

 _He is._

 _But that’s too private._

I nod.

Merrill coos like a little Welsh pigeon and leans forward, resting her head on my shoulder.

“So effing sweet my teeth ache,” Isabela rolls her eyes and smiles at me, “When are you going to hit a home run then, kitten? Before or after prom?”

I shrug, “I don’t know. I don’t have a date marked on the calendar or anything.”

“Are you going to top, sweetheart?” Mom asks me this sweetly, as sweetly as if she asked me if I was painting a landscape or if I wouldn’t mind passing her the hummus.

Again… this is… _kind of_ normal.

But I hesitate.

The four of them watch me closely.

Isabela’s eyebrow darts up, “Is _he_ a top, too? I thought he might be.”

“How does that work?” Merrill asks, looking past me to Isabela, then Andy, “with two tops? Or two bottoms?”

Then she looks at my mom.

Because mom’s, inherently, have answers.

“Well… I mean,” my mother reaches for a bit more naan, “there are ways around that. Now, I always assumed you were vers, sweetie, unless I’ve been--”

“What’s _‘vers’_?” Merrill interjects, intrigued, leaning her chin on her hand.

“Versatile, dear. It means, he gives and receives--”

“Stop!” I start laughing.

And blushing.

In earnest.

“Stop! Ah!!” I lean forward, tucking my chest against my thighs and grabbing my hair and just laugh.

They're laughing to, even Mom who stands up insisting that she thinks she has a book about this...

“I _love_ you,” I choke out, unable to catch a breath, “I love you so much, you weird, weird people. But, please… _stop_.”

…

I hear him knock.

It’s late.

But I’m up.

Bradley pushes his way past my legs, nearly taking me down as I open the door.

Fen’s drowning in bags of camera equipment, Sherpa-like, but he crouches anyway and pets Bradley who shoulders me out of the way to get to him.

"Hey," Fen says to Bradley, digging his fingers into the thick folds of his neck.

“Come inside, it’s freezing,” he may be wearing a coat but I’m just in a t-shirt and sweats and the cold air has almost taken my breath away.

He pats Bradley firmly on the ribs and stands up, shifting straps as he does so.

I grab one strap that’s about the slip off his shoulder.

“Ah, thanks,” he rumbles, sounding tired and pushes Bradley through the door, back inside.

I close the door when he’s in and watch as he starts gently setting things down.

“Bad play?”

“Hmm,” he sighs, “ _Long_ play.”

He’d called me from the warehouse and asked if it was okay to come over.

The stage manager had dropped him off.

It was too cold to walk.

And my place is warm.

He takes off his coat, “Thanks, for… letting me come over… I feel...” coat off, he gestures towards his head with a tilting hand, a vague description of what’s going on in there, and sighs, “needed to decompress.”

“Decompress, huh?”

He smiles up at me in the dark.

Apparently tonight Fen’s idea of decompression involved the two of us naked, in my bed, him over me with me between his legs, and his cock against mine.

It was an idea that he confessed had been plaguing him all night.

And only made the play feel that much longer.

 _God… the feeling of his skin sliding against mine, slick and hot and smooth and familiar in ways I can’t explain…_

“So f-fucking good,” I barely say it out loud. I barely have a voice, “Fen…”

His back is curved, face pressed against my chest, grounding him to me as his body works over mine, arching and driving skin against skin.

My arms are up by my head, pressed against my ears. He’s braced on his elbows and holds my arms in his hands, thumbs pressed firmly into my armpits.

Long graceful thrusts, perfect and, _god, I forgot I even had lube..._ and... his control.

Cock against cock.

I can’t come like this, with just this, but I wouldn’t complain if he just wanted to do this forever. I don’t need to do anything else ever again.

I’m floating somewhere.

I weigh nothing.

“Garrett-- _fuck_ yes…” he grunts, and I swear I hear a different accent in his voice.

Southern?

I smile.

I’ve heard it before… just a few times… this secret little accent that comes out when he’s close.

His back curls up like a cat with every thrust, and I feel the strength in his arms, in the places our bodies touch.

I want to feel the shape of him moving in the dark, but he holds my arms in place.

He gasps against my heart, forehead thudding hard against me.

He pulls up and away from me, taking all the air in my lungs with him.

I hate the way air feels where he was pressed against me, cold where his sweat and mine have pooled on my body.

He repositions himself between my legs, guiding my unwieldy, too long thighs where he wants them.

I just watch him.

I let him bend me where and how he wants.

I feels so good, just this, just… _letting_ him.

 _God._

 _Fuck._

 _Fen._

In the light, I see him, all white ink and skin, hard lean muscle, breathing and flexing and--

He bends my legs, pushing them up. He kisses the inside of my thigh and holds my right knee with a hot palm, fingertips digging into my skin above the bone.

He wraps his other hand around both of our cocks.

 _And pumps._

“Fuck!”

I want to watch, but my eyes close and my head falls back into the pillow.

 _His cock._

 _My cock._

 _His hand._

 _His balls against mine._

I mumble blindly.

I feel him laugh, a deep rough sound that ripples through my whole body.

I look up at him, “What?”

He doesn’t stop moving, _doesn’t stop_ , “You like this?”

“God… yes,” I gasp. He strokes my head lightly with the slick pad of his thumb.

“Tell me.”

 _God the sound of his voice… that edge…_

“Yes! I… oh, god, Fen… this feels so good…” I bite the inside of my cheek.

He growls, a dangerous quiet sound, “God, your voice…”

“My voice?”

He thrusts faster against me and, gripping us tighter and faster together.

“Yes, _ah._ ”

His head falls back.

He’s on his knees, holding me where he wants me.

 _Throat._

 _Ink._

 _The waves of muscle as his body moves us together._

 _Fuck._

“Talk, Garrett,” he’s close, and, _fuck_ … I am too, “…please.”

“You… like my voice?”

He moans, smiles this beautiful fucking smile, and leans forward, still stroking us but leaning over me, weight braced on his other hand on the bed. He’s voice is ragged, “Clearly.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Fuck. Yes. And you talk so _fucking_ much.”

“Ahhh… I do.”

“All the fucking time,” he’s smiling.

“I can’t stop.”

He’s between my legs, thrusting, and I feel… like something unlocks… I don’t know… I don’t understand.

I _talk_.

“I want you. God, this is… you feel… I want, _you inside, want it to be you, want you to _fuck_ me,” he moans loudly, surprised, he speeds up, breaks his rhythm, “Fen, I want you inside. Please-- _Fuck._ Yes…”_

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Say that again.”

“What?”

“Say--”

“I want you inside.”

“ _Ahh…_ ”

I do.

I want that. I--

 _Oh, fuck, I’m close._

“ _Fen._ ”

His jaw is slack, mouth open, and eyes shut tight.

He turns his face away from me, neck tight, shuddering with the effort, with the edge.

“Fuck!”

He comes on my stomach.

And that’s…

Well that’s more than enough for me, “Fen! _Fahhh…_ ”

I come on my stomach too so hard it almost hurts.

I am, as I always am, momentarily obliterated.

The feeling of his tongue on my skin is what brings be back to life.

With his head bent, hair in his eyes, he licks just above my bellybutton, dipping into it and when I curl up, involuntarily as the combined aftershock and the pleasantly weird sensation of the tip of his tongue _there_ he chuckles softly.

He doesn’t get it all, just a little.

A little of both of us.

I dig the fingers of both hands into his thick hair, watching him while the endorphins in my body ping around like angry wasps.

 _Wasps?_

 _Yes, wasps._

He pushes himself up, and holds my wrist, kissing the inside of it.

He settles back into the pillows next to me while I roll to grab a towel off the floor and wipe myself off.

“Did you…” he asks as I clean myself off, his voice sleepy and low, “mean that? What you said? Or was that just… it’s okay if it was--”

I know immediately what he means.

“Yeah. I… did. Mean it. I haven’t _really_ …” I drop the towel to the floor, “ever.”

“You never?”

“No.”

“Oh…” his eyebrows go up, “Really?”

I shake my head, “I’m not _opposed_ to it… I… always wanted to. The opportunity never presented itself. But, yeah, I um…”

He turns to me, kissing me suddenly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I mean… I don’t want to do it right _now._ ”

He laughs, and runs a thumb across my lip, “Really? _Not_ right now?”

“Shocking, right?”

He smiles, eyes hidden behind thick black eyelashes, as he looks at my mouth, “Not right now. But… I’d really, _really_ like to do that with you.”

I’m tapped out, exhausted, full of endorphin-wasps but the ghost of that edge is in his voice and it tightens something inside of me.

I swallow, “I guess that’s kind of a big deal, right?”

“It, uh,” he blinks slowly, carefully, and I hear the edge soften and blur as something that isn’t an accent and isn’t an edge takes its place, “it would have been a big deal anyway.”

I drift, happy, content--

“Garrett?”

I’m already almost asleep, “Mmhmm?”

“I need to tell you something.”

My eyes snap open.

 _That’s never a good sentence._

 _Never._

“What?” all my wasps die.

“Do you remember, when you asked if I saw your penis in the shower and I said no, I hadn’t,” he smiles, like a wolf would smile if wolves smiled, “I lied. I saw everything.”

“You bastard!” I sigh, rattled, and grab him, rolling over him, pinning him under me.

He’s laughing, near a giggle, "I couldn't live with that lie anymore."

“You _bastard_ ,” I laugh softly, and when I kiss him, I realize there are still a few wasps limping around inside.

Wasps are resilient like that.


	41. Chapter 41

“Hmm.”

 _Click._

This is too tight.

I swallow.

 _Click._

Okay, no… no. Too tight.

I tug at the tie.

“Garrett,” he’s quiet, like library-quiet, and that catches me off guard, “Don’t touch the tie.”

I sigh.

 _Click._

“I think it’s too tight.”

“I think it’s fine,” he smiles and lowers the camera just enough to look at me, “you just never wear ties. That's what they feel like.”

“I do.”

 _Click._

“Sometimes.”

 _Click._

This is for the competition.

They want headshots of all the competitors.

Why… I don’t know.

I mean, I _know_. There’s a printed program for the event; A photo and a biography of all the competitors and information about each of the cafés or restaurants for each respective competitor.

Still, it feels silly.

I don’t entirely know what it matters what they person making your coffee _looks_ like…

 _Click._

“Turn left, just a… yeah.”

Actually gearing up for the barista-ing part of the barista competition has been easy, cathartic, soothing even. Exciting. I'm pushing myself in new ways and that feels really good. I love what I do. I get really zen about it. I’ve been feeling extra zen lately… as a result.

But the other stuff?

New clothes.

Headshots.

I let Isabela clean up my eyebrows a little.

 _A little._

Even just doing the bit in the middle, the pain was exquisite.

I don’t care what she says, I didn’t _cry_ …

But my eyes did water.

She had been so delighted.

 _Sadist._

“Hmm. Chin up a little.”

I lift my chin.

“Too much,” he smirks, “Down.”

He tries to talk me into the right chin position, but finally gives up with an exasperated little growl ( _um, yeah_ ) and walks up to me, standing between my knees where I’m perched on the stool.

The corner of his mouth tugs a little, and he reaches for my jaw, gently, guiding my head into the best light.

But he pauses, fingers against my skin.

Not my beard.

My skin.

Varric asked if I wouldn’t mind losing the beard for the competition.

I thought it was kind of a strange request.

 _But I was, effectively, being Bianca’s face and if Varric wants Bianca’s face to be beardless…_

I’d shaved it off this morning alone in my bathroom.

It was... hard. I love my beard.

I’ve been startled by the stranger in every damn reflective surface all day long.

When Fen saw me at 9:05 (he was still asleep when I left for work), he did as close to a double-take as I think I’ll ever see out of him.

By which I mean, of course, that he tilted his head at me like an owl and said, “Huh.”

And then stared at me and smiled his wolf-smile while I got his coffee.

He brushes the heel of his hand against my cheek.

“Hmm.”

I lean into it.

And out of the light.

He sighs, frustrated but not really.

“Sorry,” _I’m not really sorry_. I kiss the inside of his palm.

As much as I miss the beard, I love the way his skin feels against my face.

And on top of that neat little sensory treat, what really makes that want tighten inside of me is that in his palm, I taste him, tobacco, and just the faintest hint of _me_.

He clears his throat and blinks fast, looking away from me at the window.

Gold _end of the day_ sunlight catches the green of his eyes.

 _That’s my favorite color._

 _That green flash._

“Losing the light,” he mumbles, turning back to me and repositioning my head again, reaching to touch my hair but thinking better of it, he steps back, backwards.

“It’s too bad they want black and white,” he says.

 _Click._

“You only shoot black and white,” I say, trying to hold still.

“Relax,” _Click_ “And I don’t. Color… I like color. When color is interesting.”

“Is there an interesting color here?”

 _Click._

“Your eyes,” _Click_ , “in this light? They’re…”

 _Click._

He waits for the right word, “Striking.”

I smile.

 _Click._

“And who knew you had a chin under there?”

My chin. I want to rub it.

I’ve been rubbing my face all day.

Highly unsanitary habit for food service.

But it’s just so weird.

“I thought I’d have a tan line.”

 _Click._

I’ve had that beard for years.

It’ll come back.

Given three days of unheeded growth, it’ll start coming back in and being beardlike.

I miss it.

Like an old friend.

Who lived on my face.

 _Click._

“What are you thinking about?”

I laugh, “Really deep thoughts.”

 _Click._

“Oh yeah?”

“I was thinking about my beard.”

“Ahh.”

As soon as he tells me that he got it and gives me the all-clear, I pull the damn tie loose.

 _Click._

“What are you…”

 _Click._

I smile and stand up, pulling the tie out of my collar, “I thought you got it.”

“I did.”

 _Click._

“So…”

“So,” he smirks.

And _Clicks._

“Sit down.”

I sit.

 _Click._

Something changes.

It’s… I can taste it in my mouth.

Metallic.

And real, a real change.

Just as real as the change in light.

 _Click._

“Take that off.”

“Oh…” my fingers are at the buttons, undoing them, “it’s like that?”

“Hmm…” he crouches, “yeah… it is.”

Normally… under any other circumstances…

I’d feel really uncomfortable about this.

I’m not a shirtless-picture kind of guy.

I’m not.

But… here? In his apartment.

With his camera?

And his eye?

I feel safe.

I trust him.

And, also?

This is hot.

 _Click._

I unbutton the cuffs.

 _Click._

I pull the sleeves down my arms and drop it behind me.

 _Click._

He stands up. It hits me what’s happening and I laugh.

No.

I giggle.

 _Click._

“You’re _fucking_ cute,” he smiles, lowering the camera for a second.

“Oh am I?” I run my hands through my hair and close my eyes tight.

 _Click._

“Are my nipples in this picture?” I look at him.

He laughs thickly, “Do you want them to be?”

 _Click._

“Hmm… I don’t,” _Click_ “I don’t know!”

He a few more quick shots.

My cheeks feel hot.

I look down at my knees.

I wore my jeans, because they wouldn’t show in the headshot.

My knee pokes out, wide and square and hairy through a tear in the denim.

 _Click._

I look up.

The camera is gone.

And there’s just him.

Against me, warm and solid.

His hand is at the back of my head.

He kisses me, and for a minute I forget how to breathe.

But it doesn’t matter.

My arms are full of him.

“ _Fen._ ”

I wrap my legs around him as much as I can on the stool without losing my balance and falling off the back.

“You have no idea,” he says quietly, low, pulling back from me but not letting go of the back of my head, “do you?”

I swallow, “What?”

He kisses me, and I pull him in.

“What you…” the golden-hour has long passed, but his eyes still manage to catch the light, to flash, “are.”

“What am I?”

He smiles, and holds my face between both of his hands, my cheeks pressed between his palms.

I don't get an answer.

But I guess I... I kind of get a non-verbal answer.

I like non-verbal answers with him.

We end up, not long after that, in his bed.

Time doesn’t exist there.

In that bed on a box-spring on the floor.

Nope. No time.

Just Fen.

And me.

And pillows.

And his cock in my mouth.

And mine in his.

We’re on our sides.

His hair is soft on the inside of my thigh, under his head, tickling as his head moves.

As he--

 _Fuck._

I have to stop.

I can’t focus.

I’ve lost my motor skills.

I shut my eyes and let the weight of my head rest on his thigh, kissing a swirl of white ink deliriously as his tongue--

“ _Fuck, Fen!_ ”

 _I can’t see him but I know he smiles._

 __I don’t know how I know._ _

_I just do._

I wrap my hand around him and try, valiantly, to keep stroking him with something that might, in bad lighting, be recognized as rhythm.

I hadn’t been sold on this position.

I thought with the height difference--

 _Fuck the height difference._

One of his arms is curled under my thigh, and his fingers dig into the muscle as he speeds up, humming around me.

 _I love that._

I make a noise that’s part groan, part sob when I feel the wet press of his thumb against my ass.

“Yeah?” he growls, waiting, just there, just outside.

I bend my top leg, trying to get it out of his way, trying to say _’Yes, please, that, please…’_ without using words because I have completely lost words.

 _Completely._

I come in his mouth with my face pressed hard against his thigh, his lips tight around me, and his thumb in my ass.

 _Incredible._

 _Life changing._

 _I’m a different person after that orgasm._

When I, as a new person, become sentient enough to lean over him, push him onto his back and do my damn best to return the favor, his hands are both on the back of my head.

Not pushing.

Not demanding.

But there.

Really there.

I take as much of him in as I can, trying to breathe on the upstroke, encouraged by the deep, unmonitored sounds he’s making and the security of his fingers against my scalp.

“Jesus Christ…” I hear his accent, my nose pressed into the skin of his belly.

 _He’s close._

“Garrett,” he gasps, and a second later I feel teeth on my thigh. Hard.

He bites me.

I groan around him.

And that’s it.

He comes hard, his mouth open and gasping against my leg.

I swallow.

He gets up after a healthy amount of each of us just lying there in the same position, dazed, and gets us both glasses of water.

He hands me mine, and I drink, feeling too loose to sit up.

Water drips down my chin.

Which still feels weird and naked.

I wipe it away and look up at him, upside down.

He’s standing there naked and calm and drinking water and I can see him in the thin, indistinct light coming through the window from a streetlamp outside.

It got dark.

But our eyes have adjusted.

I can see him so clearly.

…

I’m completely out of it.

 _Who am I?_

 _What happened?_

 _I did what now?_

 _Why am I wearing this tie?_

 _Why is Mom here?_

 _This is good pizza._

Varric pounds me on the back.

“Another round, Hawke?”

I shake my head, “No… I’m…”

We’re in this pizza place.

I think I picked it.

I think I did.

I think we drove by and I pointed and said, “There.”

 _This is a big deal._

 _This thing that happened._

 _This thing that I did earlier today._

“Hey, uh,” I hear Fen.

He’s there, standing up.

“I’m going to go out for some air, and a smoke… Garrett, do you want to…”

I nod, clumsily standing up out of the booth.

I follow him outside, into cold night air.

The flame of his lighter is bright in the dark.

Smoke.

Exhale.

“You okay?”

“Huh?”

“You look a little…”

“I am a little…” I lean against the wall, “…did I _win_?”

He smiles.

 _I’m Garrett Hawke._

 _I’m the son of Malcolm and Leandra Hawke, older brother of Carver and Bethany Hawke._

 _Owner of Bradley Hawke._

 _I’m almost twenty-eight years old._

 _I’m allergic to bees and terrified of spiders._

 _I work at Bianca’s Coffee._

 _My best friends are inside this pizza place._

 _I spend most of my nights with this smoker, Fen Aucoin, photographer._

 _I’m happy._

 _Really happy._

 _And… today… I became the Champion of Kirkwall._

 _Well... as far s baristas go._

“I won?”

“Yes!” he chuckles, blowing smoke up.

I watch his throat.

“I just… it doesn’t feel real! I really…”

I really won.

I beat _Java Shock_.

And, fuck, their guy was good.

And massive.

Physically.

Bigger than _me_.

Standing next to each other, we dwarfed the judges.

 _Java Shock!_

When we arrived in the morning to set up my station, me carrying a jumbled cardboard box of tools, I felt completely outclassed by Java Shock’s massive, streamlined travel equipment in shiny cases.

They came to this every year.

They won _every year_.

Except for this one.

Varric is as happy as I’ve ever seen him.

It’s a huge deal for Bianca’s. Huge.

And for me.

I can’t wrap my brain around it.

I didn't very much last night.

Like, at all.

While Fen slept, I watched episodes of Cheers with the volume turned down low until the sky started turning light.

Cheers is comforting.

Everyone knows your name.

And my dad had a certain Ted Dansen quality.

Comforting.

I fell asleep in the car on the way to the keep. Like a little kid.

Varric drove. It was the three of us, Fen and Varric and I.

Varric asked Fen to come, to shoot the day.

I suspect he might have come anyway.

Mom drove the station wagon over later in the morning.

With… _everyone_. Bethany and Carver had just come home for winter break (mom picked them up in a red shirt last night), so… they got dragged along (well, Bethy was excited… Carver was dragged).

Andy, Isabela and Merrill were there as well.

Merrill and Isabela had made me a sign. With glitter.

Which kind of made me want to cry.

Each competitor had a playlist that would play while they worked.

Andy made mine.

I was shaved. Wearing new clothes, a vest and a tie and a new shirt.

Pants without torn up knees.

 _It felt like being in a costume in a play._

 _Like I was playing Barista Garrett._

 _But there was no script._

I had a mic on, and was instructed to talk the judges through my process, talk about the coffee. About aroma and beans and creama--

I was worried about that part the most.

The talking.

Because sometimes, _most of the time_ , when I talk is when things go wrong…

But, ultimately… I was just talking about coffee.

I was zen-like.

It’s a blur now.

I had to ask them later, when we were still milling around at the Keep, if I’d said anything insane… because I was in a coffee-trance or something.

Even Carver assured me that once I got going, I said nothing stupid.

And if _Carver_ told me that…

What it really came down to was a fifteen minute presentation from each of us during which we made three rounds of espresso drinks for three stone faced judges. They were looking for procedure, consistency, cleanliness…

And, you know, good coffee.

At the end we served a signature drink, over-which I had labored and practiced a _lot._

I called it The Green Flash.

A Kona espresso drink for the end of the day, _when the sun slips behind the horizon and you see that momentary flare of green at the end of the world…_

I guess they liked it.

Because… I _won_.

Standing outside with Fen, it feels real.

Like a real thing.

I won.

 _Which means… recognition, a little trophy (which will live, proudly, at Bianca’s), a cash prize and a paid trip for two to the national competition in New York._

I start laughing and rub my face.

“Ahh!!”

He leans next to me, dropping his cigarette.

“There you are,” he says quietly.

“Hmm,” I smile down at him, “I wish my dad was here.”

He nods.

“You’d have really liked him,” his hand finds mine between us, “He’d have really liked you.”

He smiles.

“Hey!”

Bethany pokes her head out, “Gare-Bear, Varric wants to make a toast.”

Both she and Carver have been (illegally) drinking with the rest of us and her cheeks are flushed.

She darts back inside.

“Come on,” Fen peels away from the wall.

“Will you…”

His head snaps towards me, too fast.

I pause.

“Uh, will you, stay over tonight?”

 _I feel like he thought I was going to say something else._

 _He’s tense._

 _Hmm._

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’m exhausted,” I laugh, pushing off from the wall, “so… you know… don't expect anything.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grabs my tie, “you say that now.”

He’s smiling, but still tense.

There’s something there.

But he’s pushing it down.

I bite my lip.

“Hey.”

He looks up at me.

 _I can’t ask him._

 _I can’t push._

The wind ruffles his hair.

 _Later._

He nods, like he heard me think.

I kiss him and I feel the tension ebb, a little.

“You… today,” he’s calm, voice even, close, “you were kind of amazing.”

“Kind of?”

“Not _kind of_. Really.”

“Thank you for being there… not, just… not just as a photographer,” I sigh as his hand finds my cheek, still beardless.

“It’s still kind of strange hearing your voice come out of this face,” he smirks, fingertips light and warm on my skin.

I shrug, “It’s my face.”

He pulls me down and kisses my jaw.

“I know. But you just look so… _young_.”

I laugh and curl around him, closing my eyes. I savor the quiet and the cold December air and the warmth of him for just a second, before we go back in.

Inside, it’s very warm and very pizza-y, and Varric has magnanimously bought a round for the restaurant.

I sit down, reclaiming my seat next to Andy who throws an arm around my neck while Varric, quite the orator, launches into a surprisingly long speech.

About me.

It feel like it’s something Dad would have done.

Fen sits across from me, smirking the whole time.

I just want to kiss that smirk. All the time.

I drink my shitty American beer when Varric finishes, and I laugh, and I relax.

Because they’re all there. Team Hawke.

And because I’m the Champion.

No big deal or anything.


	42. Chapter 42

“Well, dammit.”

Bradley looks at me, clearly unimpressed with my plight.

“I don’t know why I do this. I really don’t,” I mumble, mostly to myself, staring bewildered at the massive tangle of Christmas lights, “You’d think I’d learn, right? Year after year… same thing.”

I never put these Christmas lights away properly.

Never.

I always say I’m going to do it properly, but then I get frustrated with them and wad them up into this ball.

 _This mess._

And then I leave it for next year.

I forget about it entirely, live my life blissfully unaware that this menace is just there, unresolved, lying in wait for me.

And then it’s Christmas again… and I remember.

And every year, I get so mad at past-me for not buying one of those plastic winding rack things at Home Depot and putting things away neatly.

“Hopeless,” I tug at what looks like a promising strand, which is not promising at all.

“Maybe I’ll just leave it like that. That’s festive, right?”

I look at Bradley for assurance as I stand up.

“Wait. It gets better,” I plug in the tangle and switch off the overhead light.

Warm soft Christmas lighting reflects back at me in Bradley’s big brown eyes.

But he still seems unimpressed.

“They still _work_ ,” I sigh.

Which actually makes it more frustrating.

Because--

Bradley hears the knock at the door before I do and lurches off the couch with so much velocity that it actually scoots the couch backward a couple of inches.

I follow.

 _At midnight tonight, I’ll be twenty-eight._

 _Which… I don’t know how I feel about that._

 _Twenty-eight._

 _I should really have some things figured out by twenty-eight, right?_

 _If I’m honest, I think I have more figured out now than I did a year ago, when I was sitting in bed with Bradley and a jar of Nutella and Wheat Thins waiting for the LED numbers on my clock to switch over from 11:59 to 12:00, and my internal clock to flip over from twenty-six to twenty-seven._

 _No… I’ve done stuff this year._

 _Really._

“He’s coming for you!” I say loud enough that I know Fen can hear me through the door, as if the pounding dog feet weren’t enough of a dead giveaway.

I hear him laugh.

And I grin.

Opening the door, Bradley bounds happily out to him, thudding wide paws on his chest.

“Ahh,” Fen staggers back, not entirely braced for that much dog, but he catches himself and scratches Bradley’s ribs enthusiastically.

“Bradley!” I click my tongue with some vague sense of authority. He ignores me entirely.

“Hey, hey,” Fen says quietly and scratches his ears, pushing him down and he goes, trotting back inside past me.

“Oh, I see how it is,” I say, looking back over my shoulder as he goes by, stub tail wagging as he trots off towards my room.

When I turn back, my hand still on the door, Fen’s closer than I expect.

I have no complaints about this.

I bend down and kiss him, softly, and close the door with my long Muppet arm.

“Mmm,” I didn’t turn on any of the lights on the way and the only light is the warm Christmasy glow from the mess in the living room.

It feels cozy.

Or it does now that he’s here.

I haven’t seen him.

He’s been out of town for this snooty wedding at a resort.

But he came back tonight.

We made these plans before he left.

He’d be back on the 23rd.

Epically exciting plans… we’re going to make dinner and watch Monty Python until I turn another year older.

 _He tastes like peppermint._

I go back in for more.

“Hmm,” he kisses my chin, which is looking decidedly more familiar, if not restored to its former glory, with an even growth of new beard, “How’re the waning hours of twenty-seven?”

“So far? Pretty good,” I kiss his cheek, “getting better.”

“It’s dark in here,” he observes quietly, setting his bag down with familiarity on the trunk by the door.

“Yeah, I uh…” I lead him into the living room, “I was doing _this_.”

The matted ball looks vaguely B-movie sci-fi, and significantly less than festive.

My tree is there, still undecorated and pointedly unlit.

He chuckles, “You want some help?”

“You want to help me untangle my ball?”

He gives me a look.

 _I love that look._

“Is this how you want to spend your last hours as a twenty-seven year old?”

I shrug, “Yes. It’s all I’ve thought about all day. The only thing that kept me going was saying over and over to myself, ‘tonight, when Fen comes back from that wedding, he’s going to come over and sit on my living room floor with me and, hopefully, untangle my ball of lights.’”

He sighs and looks down at it, poking it with his toe. Laughing, he takes off his coat and hat, dropping both onto the couch before kneeling next to the ball.

“I can’t help but feel that wine might make this more interesting,” he looks up at me imploringly, lit with that soft yellow light, the white lines on his chin so faintly raised.

 _White ink, I’ve been informed, is thicker than regular colored ink._

 _And a white ink tattoo is gone over more than once._

 _This was explained to me when I asked why I could feel them._

 _Why they feel like more like scars._

I go into the kitchen to get the wine, uncorking and pouring in there.

“I would have thought you’d have done this a long time ago,” he says, loud enough for me to hear him.

I wait until I come back into the living room to answer.

“Normally I would have,” I’m legitimately impressed at how much progress he’s made on the ball since I left the room… Fen’s apparently like a John Nash of Christmas lights.

I hand him a glass, “I assumed red was fine.”

“You assumed correctly,” he takes it from me, smiling up a me for a second, before blinking and taking a sip.

I sit down, cross legged next to him and start picking at the mass.

“This year, I don’t know… just got away from me.”

“Oh yeah?”

 

I nod and sip my wine before setting the glass down on the coffee table.

“It’s like I’ve been distracted or something.”

He smirks, “Or something.”

I realize at a certain point that anytime I jump in and try to help with the de-tangling, I only make it worse, so I give up, get up to turn on some music and then come back, sitting on a pillow and watching him work.

I don’t bother turning any other lights on.

The Christmas lights are enough.

His hands keep moving, while he tells me about the wedding -- these people had, to quote him, ‘Too much damn money’ and the wedding was ridiculously opulent… but the food was _great_ , and after going to so many weddings, that’s what he’s come to really care about.

I tell him about work. It's been crazy. After a story ran in the paper about the competition, we’ve been exponentially busier… Isabela insists it’s due in no small part to the picture of me that ran with the article… and, I don't know about that, but there have been quite a few more teenage girls, coming in -- I’ve never been flirted at so much, so awkwardly in my entire life.

He takes a break now and then to sit back and survey the knot from a distance, sip some wine, and dive back in.

I think he’s actually enjoying the puzzle of it.

It’s like he’s defusing a bomb.

Pulling at the right wires with those long, dexterous, marked fingers—

 _That I suddenly, and kind of desperately, want in my mouth._

Hmm.

My chest flares hot.

I clear my throat and stand up, “Want more?”

He nods without looking up at me, chin in his hand, surveying.

When I come back with the bottle, he’s got his fist buried in the center of what’s left of the knot.

And then it unravels.

Like magic.

He pulls it apart.

“You’re amazing!” I say unfacetiously, sitting down.

He glances up at me, smirking as he starts to lay out the lights in neat, zigzagging lines on the floor, “What could you possibly need this many Christmas lights for?”

I drink.

“Hmm,” he pushes himself forward, on hands and knees, straightening the lines of lights until they look tidy.

Organized.

Neat.

He sits back on his heels.

And I touch his back.

 _There_ , that spot that I can find in the dark, on his spine.

His body is warm and solid through the thick fabric of his shirt.

He moans.

He looks at me, studying me for a minute with the same critical, bomb-defusing intensity he’d just employed on about 100 feet of string lights.

And then his hand is against my jaw.

His mouth finds mine.

 _This wine._

 _It’s a smoky red wine, one that I know he likes, and it just…_

 _It tastes to so right._

 _On him._

 _Here._

“I missed you.”

“Mmm.”

My back is against the couch, my legs bent in front of me. He crawls over me, straddling me, and it’s such a fluid move that I’m not entirely sure how he did it.

Not that it matters.

Not with his weight against me, his mouth, his hips.

And his fingers in my hair, pulling my head back.

I gasp.

“Fen?”

“Mmhm?” against my throat.

“It’s almost my birthday.”

“Mmhm.”

Teeth.

Against my throat.

 _He’s a wolf._

 _But he’s a wolf that I trust with my throat._

“It, _ah--_ sucks having a birthday on a holiday… everyone’s always so busy… _oh--_ distracted.”

Lips against the underside of my jaw, “I know.”

I smile, “I _know_ you know.”

He pauses, body still pressed against mine.

He rests his cheek against mine and wraps his arms around my neck.

He hugs me.

And it’s…

My eyes sting.

I wrap my arms around his narrow waist and hug him back, closing my eyes.

 _We found each other._

I prop my chin on his shoulder, “I’m glad you showed up.”

“Tonight?”

I laugh quietly, a laugh that sounds more like his laugh than mine, “Yeah,” I kiss his shoulder, “tonight.”

“Ah,” he gets it, I think he knows what I mean.

I hope he does.

Because I don’t really know how to say it.

 _I’m glad you showed up this year._

 _Because I think I was ready for you._

 _If you showed up a year ago._

 _Or a year from now._

 _Maybe--_

I kiss his throat and he sighs.

 _It doesn’t matter._

 _The maybes._

 _Because, while I think we would have been okay, separately if the maybes happened._

 _A year too soon, or too late._

 _It didn’t happen that way._

 _I’m happy._

 _And I’m ready._

“I’m ready, Fen.”

“Hmm?”

I slide my hands up, pressing firmly against his spine.

He snaps forward, smiling, eyes closed, “Do that again.”

I do.

He growls and grabs my sweater, forehead against mine, “That’s a big word, Garrett.”

 _Ready._

I swallow, “Yeah. It is.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod.

“I need you to say it,” his voice drops, the edge there, just barely, and that smooth control slips, gives way to something different.

“I’m ready.”

“For what?”

“For you.”

I press my fingers against his spine again, then down, holding his hips.

And I can feel him need to move.

“Say it. Say what you want.”

I look for his eyes, “I want you… to,” I’m not sure which word to use… which one is too soft, or too hard… silly… I don’t, I don’t… _oh, fuck it, Garrett, just tell him what you want_ , “fuck me.”

His control snaps.

 _He’s a wolf._

He devours me.

And I let him.

I have never wanted anything more than this.

Than this.

Than him.

It hasn’t been like this before.

There’s something gone, dissolved.

He’s a dense, heavy force, all of his weight on me.

Without breaking away from my mouth, he pulls at my sweater. I reach down with shaking hands and pull it away from my body, feeling choked inside of it, feeling trapped and the only way to breathe is to be out of it, to be with him.

I pull it off and in the time it takes me to do that, he’s unbuttoned his shirt and shucked it off.

I have to feel him.

Hot skin.

Warm light.

Every muscle under his skin moves, glides, deep and solid.

He pushes me back with one solid hand on my chest, and undoes the fly of my jeans with his other, kissing me softly, slowly.

And things slow down.

 _He’s controlling the speed of this._

 _And we both know that._

He laughs, a soft exhale against me when the zipper sticks, and he uses both hands to finish it.

He pulls away from me. I lift my hips off of the pillow and he pulls them off.

 _Layers and layers and layers and I let him take all of them._

“God,” he sighs against the inside of my thigh, “ _god_ , Garrett.”

He presses his thumbs firmly against my groin, tracing the thick seam of the legs of my briefs, stroking up, and then back down, the pads of his thumbs coming back together just below my balls.

 _That._

 _He does that to me._

 _And it…_

 _It’s…_

 _God._

“Fen,” I whine.

“Do you want to do this here?”

That voice.

 _Smoke._

“Yes.”

“Not in bed?”

 _Smoke and a smile._

“No, here.”

“Okay,” he kisses the inside of my leg, where the hair whorls in two different directions, “okay,” higher, “okay.”

His tongue is hot, deliberate through the fabric.

He holds me with steady, strong hands, cupping, pressing his nose against me and breathing in deeply.

“Fuck, you smell good,” the vibration of his voice against my balls sends an electric snap through me.

And his hands shift, up, stable against my hips.

He strips them off of me quickly and pushes me up off the floor, sitting on the couch with him kneeling between my legs.

“Spread,” he says, and I do, but not enough.

Hands against my knees, pushing me open, wider.

He slips his hands under my knees and pushes them closer to my chest, pulling my ass closer to him.

He sinks down on my cock, slowly, so, so slowly, using his mouth and his hand together.

 _He can’t take me as deep as I can take him._

 _What he does…_

 _Is incredible, and I feel so deep… infinitely deep. When he hums…_

 _Just with me in his mouth, not his throat--_

 _God._

His lips are so soft.

Against me, around me.

And his tongue, so carefully controlled, swirling around my head.

He pulls off of me with a wet audible sound.

And kisses down.

Further.

I groan.

“God, yes, yes, yes,” I babble, straining my neck to look down at him.

His hand is still wrapped around me, still pumping.

He braces his other palm against my ass cheek, kissing further, slowly, so _fucking slowly_.

I’m breathing quick, shallow, and when I feel the warm pressure of lips, the flutter on tongue against my ass--

“Yeah,” I keen and curl forward.

 _I break apart._

 _Into a million bright pieces._

 _And only Fen will know how the piece fit back together._

 _He’ll be the only one._

We’ve done this before.

For each other.

 _Fucking fantastic._

 _This was as far as we went._

 _After this…_

 _What’s after this?_

Because this, the tip of his tongue pressing in, his hand still working my cock, the heat of his breath and his hands…

If it gets better than this, I’m going to die.

I feel his teeth, possessive against the inside of my thigh and the pad of a finger replaces his tongue.

“Godammit, Garrett,” ragged, deep, “you’re so fucking perfect.”

I thread my fingers through his hair, as his head rests heavily against my thigh, high enough that he can tongue my sack while that finger, that _finger_ works so gently, so patiently against me.

He is hot.

Fever hot.

Everywhere.

 _I wonder if I feel that way to him._

“Fen--”

A dark solid blur of movement at the end of the couch snaps both of our attention.

Bradley bounds in, vaulting up onto the couch next to me, apparently not at all perturbed that his two preferred human beings seem to be having a _moment_.

Or that Fen’s index finger is buried inside of me to the first knuckle.

Nope.

Bradley doesn’t care about that.

He just wants to hang.

I laugh weakly, letting my head drop back miserably.

Fen’s still there, between my legs.

Still there… up to the knuckle.

And laughing hoarsely with his forehead pressed and sweaty against my knee.

“Uh,” he sighs, “I’m going to--”

“Ahh!” he’s out of me, gently… but I… “I wasn’t ready for that,” I wheeze.

He kisses just above my hip and stands up, and I see the tension in his entire frame.

“I’ll…” he shakes his head, “Bradley!” he pats his thigh and Bradley hops down, excited to be getting attention from him.

Fen leads him out of the room, and I hear the back door open and close.

But he doesn’t come right back.

I wait.

I wait there…

Thinking.

 _Goddamn, Fen!_

I wrap my hand around myself and stroke slowly.

I’m still slick from his mouth.

 _Fuck._

When he comes back, after what feels like hours, I’m still there, slumped on the couch, jerking myself off slowly, feet braced on the rug.

He sets down the things he has in his hands.

Lube.

Condoms.

And he takes off his glasses, setting them down carefully next to the other stuff and goes to retake his position between my legs.

But I stop him.

Sitting forward, I shake my head.

I scoot to the edge of the couch and unfasten his belt.

His breath hitches, and I kiss his stomach softly as I unbutton, unzip.

Sitting on the couch, I’m too high up, so I kneel in front of him.

Hands stroking the hard muscles in the backs of his thighs, I look up at him.

His mouth is open, breathing uneven, jagged, deep.

“Fen.”

He looks at me, opening his dark eyes, and his hands find my head. His fingers curl gently around the shell of my ear.

I lean forward, not taking my eyes from his face, and kiss the hard swell of his cock through the fabric of his underwear.

He moans, letting go of my ear and stroking the side of my face with the backs of his fingers.

I push forward, dragging my tongue from cotton-covered root to tip, and back.

He groans and I keep doing that, until the fabric is warm and wet.

I nuzzle against his balls, feeling his weight shift. I press my tongue against the seam, up the center.

“Garrett--” his eyes close, and it’s a question… but only barely.

I pull his underwear down, and as soon as his cock is free, I’m on it.

I try to keep my eyes open.

To look up at him.

Because he’s watching me.

He watches.

But I can’t.

Until I pull back, holding the base of him with my hand and lightly licking the tip, tasting the salt of his come and his skin as two distinct salts.

I close my lips and kiss him, demurely, eyes open.

I feel him shaking with the effort to hold _still_.

“I want you to,” I say, softly, licking his head.

He blinks.

 _I can’t do this with him._

 _Not the other way._

 _But he can, with me…_

 _And I…_

 _I mean…_

 _I like it._

 _A lot._

I let the head of his cock part my lips, and push forward, eye closing as I focus on _relaxing_ \--

One of his hands is curled against the top of my head, and the other comes very, very gently against my jaw, holding me. His fingers curl fit so perfectly against the shape of my jawbone, thumb against my cheek, stroking the bone carefully.

Tentative.

So soft.

I could break out of this immediately if it was too much.

If I needed to.

He thrusts shallowly in, in, _deeper_ \--

Into my throat.

I hold his thighs, as much for his reassurance as my own.

And I relax.

And breathe.

And swallow.

“ _Jesus, Garrett!_ ” he growls, pauses, thrusts again.

He pulls back, out of me, and I look up at him, gasping for air.

And at that, at the gasp, he drops down in front of me, on his knees, with the rug under us.

He kisses me, chaotically.

“I want you,” he holds my head, eyes closed, mouth on mine, “I want you, Garrett.”

“Please…” I sag into him.

I’m on my back, on the rug, with one of the cushions under my ass, and my legs spread on either side of him.

He rims me again, which sends my brain blinking out into the ether.

When he reaches for the bottle on the table, I follow him with my eyes.

“Touch yourself,” he says.

And I do.

Slowly.

The wet, slick cool pressure of his fingers against me is so good, so perfect…

 _And just slightly intrusive._

I trust him, but there’s a sudden flare of anxiety in my chest.

I dig my heels into the rug and just try to breathe, and stroke. I feel him stretch out next to me, on his side his hand between my legs, one finger still and deep.

“Hey, relax,” he whispers soothingly against my throat, “tell me if you want to stop… we’re fine…”

He kisses my shoulder and waits.

He waits.

Until I look at him, and nod, until I’m ready.

He takes his time.

Moving slowly and carefully.

There’s no rush.

He holds still when I need him to.

 _There’re no time constraints--_

My head rocks back.

 _Two fingers._

I babble.

He’s being thorough.

 _Three._

“You okay?”

I look at him, my head so heavy to lift off the floor and nod.

“Hey, Garrett?”

“Y-yeah?”

“It’s 12:02. Happy Birthday,” he smiles and kisses me, fingers still moving gently inside.

I laugh shallowly, and kiss him back, holding the back of his head with my free hand.

When he pulls out of me, I feel hollow.

Something deep and instinctual takes over.

It’s just… clear.

 _I need him._

I sip a little wine, shaking hand on the glass, as he stands up, tears open a wrapper, rolls on a condom and strokes himself with more lube.

He settles heavily between my legs, leaning over me to kiss me, deep, long.

“Ready?”

“ _Fuck_ , yes.”

He smiles. The head of his cock is blunt, thick, _fuck, Fen, so thick_ \--

“Ahh!” I reach for him.

“Oh, for fuck- _fucking_ sake--”

It burns.

Even after all that.

Just the tip, and it _burns_ but, god…

“ _Fuuuuck_ ,” he shifts his weight, braced on his arms, and just that little push makes me see stars, “Fuck you feel good.”

“Thanks,” I gasp.

He moans, smiling, “Is this okay? You okay?”

“Yes.”

I am.

Actually.

It burns, yeah, but that’s…

That’s nothing.

I can feel the tension in him, the control he has as he pushes in, so slowly… not wanting to hurt me, wanting this to be good, wanting for this to make me feel good--

His head sags forward when he’s there, balls deep, and we just…

Wait.

And…

 _I never knew._

 _I mean… I had theories._

 _I had ideas about what this was like._

 _What it was like to… have someone inside. Inside of your body._

 _But like this?_

 _I didn’t know._

His body moves under my hands and he pulls back, out, slowly… and I clench around him.

“ _Ah!_ ”

“It’s okay, relax,” he kisses my chest.

Back, and back, and then in.

Slow.

Until I can…

Until, _fuck_ \--

“More.”

He looks at me, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He rocks into me.

Gentle.

Which is good.

 _Great._

“More.”

“Oh, fuck.”

He thrusts deeper, home, holding himself up.

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“I want... please.”

He growls, “Say it.”

“ _More._ ”

“Say it.”

“ _F-fuck!_ ”

“Garrett?”

“Uh…”

He falters, there, on the brink of what I need, what he needs, what I can’t find the word for.

“I can’t… unless you…” There’s something hurt in that voice and I lift my head.

His eyebrows are pinched, tight, eyes closed tight.

This is something buried in him, something new.

 _No, it’s something old._

“Fen,” my voice is weak, hoarse, but his eyes open and he looks at me, “please fuck me.”

“ _Ahhh_ ,” he does.

And, god…

Fucking fantastic.

The kind of sex I might have always wanted for my birthday but never knew to ask for.

Deep, hard thrusts rock me back, my shoulders rubbing hard against the rug under me.

“Is this good?” he gasps.

“Yes,” my head rolls, “Fen, yes… more--”

“More?”

“Yeah.”

“More?”

I arch my back, out of a reflex I don’t understand from this end, and--

 _Everything changes._

 _Something distant and clinical tells me that his cock has found my prostate._

He holds on to me as I twist, overwhelmed.

“Oh, that’s what that’s like,” I mumble.

He slows down, shifting, “I found that for you before.”

“Yeah, but not with your cock.”

“Yeah, no,” he sighs, smiling, “not with my cock.”

He finds it for me again.

With his cock.

And again.

And I’m getting close.

I warn him.

Or I think I do.

I try to.

He closes his fingers around mine, which are still wrapped around limply around my cock, weaving his fingers between mine, and I feel the alien heat of his fingertips on that skin, between my own.

He pumps in time with long, deep thrusts.

“I want you to come with me in your ass,” he says as evenly as I think he can, “I want to feel you come.”

I’m close.

His angle is perfect, right there, right--

I’m--

“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! I fucking love-- Oh, _fuck_!”

White-hot something sears through every single nerve ending I have, especially…

God, especially every nerve ending in my ass, which… _grips_ him, over and over and over, and it just feels so tight and full and--

 _Whole._

He’s driving in, flushed, beautiful… and he turns away.

“Fen,” I swallow, my mouth is so dry, _I need to see you, don’t turn, please… this time, please…_

He tries.

He tries to look at me.

I can tell that he does.

He gets close to doing it…

But he ends up coming with his face pressed into the hollow of my throat, shouting into my chest.

We lay there on the rug for what feels like hours.

I’m completely drained.

My bones melted.

Fen melted my bones.

Totally.

He shivers against me and it’s like he comes back to life, he kisses me sleepily and reaches down, holding on to the base of the condom and pulling out.

“ _Oh._ ”

“Okay?”

I nod and he flops down next to me, on his back and stares up at the ceiling.

I glance at the clock on the cable box, “Fen.”

He rolls his head and fixes green eyes on me, “Yeah?”

“I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that this has been the best first thirty-two minutes of any year of my life.”

He smiles, too tired to laugh, “High praise, Hawke.”

I reach for him with clumsy long arms, pulling him in.

I kiss his head.

“Jesus Christ!” I mumble into his hair.

He presses slick fingers into the hair on my chest, and rumbles agreeably.

“How does it feel being twenty-eight?”

“I’m a little sore, actually.”

“Ah, yeah,” he nods, “that sounds about right. It is a quick and steady decline…”

It’s warm in the apartment. I’d cranked the heat up earlier.

Laying here naked with him, I’m glad I did.

It’s comfortable.

My presents for everybody are ready to go under my dark tree, just past out feet.

I make presents.

Generally.

I mean… if someone wants something handmade.

Carver couldn’t possibly care less about handmade presents, so I buy his.

But I made most of them this year. Often finishing things with Fen here, on Monty Python nights.

I sit up and crawl forward, feeling giddy.

I made Andy’s friendship bracelet, finally.

And I mean… it’s not your average friendship bracelet. It’s high quality. I went all out.

 _I have this little bag of string, colors I didn’t use for Andy…_

“What are you doing?” I hear behind me, close.

He sitting up.

Hair everywhere, eyes sleepy.

 _Disheveled works for him._

I sit next to him.

“Give me your wrist.”

Without thinking about it, he extends his right hand toward me.

I balance it in my lap.

“What--”

I take a long piece of sturdy red friendship bracelet string and wind it around his wrist three times. I tie it with a secure little knot.

 _I don’t know why._

 _It's silly._

 _I’m pure endorphins._

 _But this feels like the right thing to do._

He looks at it, lying there in my lap.

“Thank you,” he smiles.

I kiss his smile.

 _It’s my favorite._ …


	43. Chapter 43

The house is dark, but we don’t need lights.

Actually, after spending hours in warm, dim lighting, the idea of turning on an actual light is unappealing. _Jarring._

I light a couple of white emergency candles in the bathroom when we go in to take a shower, rather than turning on the lights.

Which is silly.

But I don’t care.

If he cares, he doesn’t say anything.

It feels… cozy.

Safe.

In this place we’re in together.

This place we found.

We take a shower with just the emergency candles for light through the curtain. We’re both exhausted and it isn’t much of a shower, just kind of a rinse off with shampoo…

 _…and standing there together under the hot water, making out, lazily, sated… just… happy and tired._

 _The way you feel after swimming all afternoon as a kid in the summer._

His wet hair parts differently than normal and I see that long scar curve from his temple to the top of his head, the one normally, _carefully_ , intentionally hidden.

I press my lips against it without thinking and taste wet hair and bitter shampoo.

He doesn’t pull away or try to hide it. He lets me.

Then he laughs happily while I dramatically spit out shampoo.

We dry off but don’t get dressed.

I originally had grand plans for dinner but instead I throw a frozen pizza in the oven.

We devour it at 3 AM in the living room and finish the wine.

And go to bed, clean and naked and full.

I wake up with his head on my chest, his hair tickling my nose and his fingers curled around my arm.

I never sleep on my back.

And he’s never, to the best of my knowledge, slept like this, on his belly, on me. Covering me.

But here we are.

I’d like to stay here, like this, forever.

Fortunately, it being my birthday, I have the day off so there’s no need for either of us to get up.

To leave.

So we don’t.

 _He sleeps on me._

He’s such a light sleeper, I don’t mean to do it, but when I weave my fingers into his hair he wakes up. He sighs. I feel him blinking, smoothing his fingertips across my chest in calm little ovals until _I_ start to fall asleep again.

I ask him if he dreams with an accent.

He laughs and says no.

I ask him if he dreams in English, or in French, Icelandic…

And he tells me that he doesn’t dream.

But I think he does. I think he just doesn’t remember them, but I keep that to myself.

Around nine, I get up long enough to make us coffee, but I shuffle back to him, steaming mugs in hand, and burrow back into the sheets that are warm and smell like him and me.

When we really start to wake up, for keeps, we drink coffee and talk.

I get up again, briefly, and slice a green apple to take back to bed and share.

Mostly he talks, and I listen in a kind of happily dazed stupor.

 _He talks more in bed than he does anywhere else, lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling… he’s comfortable._

 _He talks with his hands._

He’s stretched out next to me, my sheets twisted around his hips, telling me about the time he ran for his life from a bull in a field as a kid… and it’s such a good story, he tells it so well, and he _laughs_ and…

I gently catch one of his talking-hands, winding my fingers into his.

He rolls his head, smiling, and looks at me.

“ _Hmm_ ,” he bites his lip, pulling our hands towards himself.

He kisses my fingers with soft, wide coffee-warm lips.

And it’s easy. Immediate.

We can do this now.

With each other.

To each other.

My body feels sore, raw in a not unpleasant but less than subtle way… but he’s careful with me, just as thorough and patient as he was last night, and by the time he’s inside of me again, his body arched against my back, his hand curled and stable, strong, against the inside of my thigh, holding me open, keeping me where he wants, how he wants… I’m ready for him.

 _I’m mumbling, begging…_

 _I don’t even know what comes out of my mouth._

But I do know I make him laugh a couple of times against the back of my neck, whatever it is.

 _Each laugh is deep and real, and followed with a kiss against my vertebrae._

I come in his hand.

He comes inside of me.

And that feels so _right_.

After, we lie there up until hunger finally wins out.

Really… when my stomach rumbles loudly enough that he hears it and lifts his head, looking at me with a grin bordering on goofy amusement… that’s when we get up.

We make a quick breakfast, scrambling every egg I have, and making more coffee, which we have at the kitchen table and share with Bradley who is _finally_ allowed in.

We shower.

Together.

And I feel like this shower was meant for two people and I just never realized it before.

By the time I’m loading Christmas presents into the trunk, I realize that I wasn’t just comfortable to the point of inertia before… I’d actually been _nervous_ to leave bed.

 _Because… maybe if we left that place… maybe this would change._

 _Or that some part of the charm would break._

 _Or dissolve._

 _Because that was--_

He walks out of the front door with Bradley trotting and, as much as a dog can, beaming next to him.

He’s dressed. Clean lines, good tailoring, all those neat, orderly pieces of clothes so structured… putting my ratty sweater and jeans to shame.

This morning he’d actually been stunned into silence when I told him that I didn’t, in fact, own an iron.

He smiles at me, opening the car door for Bradley, and it’s the same smile as the one he had in bed, telling me the story about running like hell from a bull.

 _Not broken, then._

…

So normally on my birthday, I’d spend the day out alone…

Or, not alone… but with just Bradley.

I’m not an overly contemplative person.

I mean, I think a lot. But generally not in a kind of deep, life-pondering way. I’m not a long lonely walk with my thoughts kind of guy.

My birthday has often been the exception.

Over breakfast, Fen had asked what I wanted to do.

 _My gut reaction had been to say ‘just be with you.’_

 _Which is the truth._

Hoping that that sentiment went understood if unspoken, I told him about my annual long lonely thought-walk and at first, I think he thought I meant that I wanted to be alone.

Which I did _not_ want.

I made that clear. Or I tried to.

And so we drive out here, together, to the preserve, with Bradley a furry ball of excitement in the back seat.

He brought his camera. Which, is great... because the preserve is beautiful. More beautiful in this kind of coastal, foggy cold weather...

But that's just my opinion. Some people really love sunny days.

I'm not one of those people.

The plan is to spend a few hours out here and then make our way over to Mom's.

 _Mom had gone out of her way to make sure all of them, Andy and Bela, Merrill and Fen knew that they were very much invited to come to her place for Christmas. She’d printed up little invitations and brought them into the shop._

 _I had given Fen’s to him the next day with his coffee._

 _I thought he’d have chuckled about it, but he didn’t._

 _He smiled that funny little smile and folded it carefully before putting it in the pocket in his coat’s lining._

 _I suspect she’s already made them Hawke-Stockings._

 _Gaudy, intentionally hideous Bedazzled stockings that she adds new crap to every year…_

I love the Brecilian Nature Preserve. It’s pretty isolated, overgrown and near enough to the coast that there’s that faint salty smell in the air.

In this kind of winter weather, it’s still and quiet… like a sound-stage forest in an old movie.

And, maybe my favorite thing, there’s a big tree off the trail that is unnaturally perfect for climbing.

The sky is grey, diffusing the sunlight, making all the greens greener and the yellow grass softer. I let Bradley off his leash and wind the leather strap into a coil.

Fen’s halted back behind me on the trail, looking comfortingly foreign in the setting, in a vest and slacks in the wilderness…

 _But that’s him._

His attention’s caught on something, and with his camera in his hands… he’s just…

 _I like so much that he’s here._

 _That he came here, to this place that I always come alone._

 _And that he dressed so inappropriately for it._

I set down the leash and walk over to my tree.

I always really liked climbing. The problem for me was that after a certain point, there weren’t that many things sturdy enough for me to climb on.

I got really big.

This tree is sturdy enough. By far.

It has been for years.

I reach up and grab a hold of my first branch, hoisting myself up with a grunt.

And I climb.

Up and up and up.

Until I find my spot.

I sit there, and I can see out, everywhere. I can see Bradley, stalking happily through the tall grass.

I can see Kirkwall as a thin line behind me.

And I can see the ocean. Grey and endless and flat.

But I can’t see Fen.

I can hear shoes on the gravel under me.

And a laugh.

 _I feel that in my chest. Like gravity._

I look down between my knees.

He’s looking up at me, smiling broadly.

“You want to come up?”

He laughs, says flatly, “No.”

“You sure? It’s quite a view…”

“I’m sure,” he pushes hair back from his face, “I’ve got a thing about heights.”

“Didn’t know that.”

He shrugs, “Now you do.”

A strong wind blows ocean-air through my tree and I look up, out.

 _Click._

I look down.

He lowers the camera.

And smiles.

 _White teeth._

 _Green eyes._

And I don’t want to be in this tree anymore.

I start my quick descent, sliding and swinging down until I’m holding on to the last branch, waiting to drop back to my feet.

He watches me the whole time.

I drop.

And try to adjust my clothes which have gotten shifted up, shirt twisted around my torso.

 _Click._

“Come here,” he says.

And I do.

I kiss him under my tree, holding on to him with scratched palms.

I kiss him _against_ my tree, the bark against his back, roots under our feet.

My long-lonely thought-walk isn’t lonely at all.

And I’m really okay with that.

…

Christmas exploded in the house.

It’s everywhere.

Dripping from every nook and cranny.

Some of it very English, Father-Christmas stuff… some of it uber-Americana… and even some non-Christmasy, pagan stuff.

Nothing overtly Christian, though.

Commercial Christmas is fine, but she’s not big on baby Jesus, my mother.

We owned one nativity, once.

She had insisted on putting a different “stand-in” in the center in lieu of the infant savior. It made her laugh.

My favorite was, and will always remain, R2-D2.

 _Our Lord and Savior._

 _Whistle-Beep-Boop._

Fen and I are staying in my room again while the rest of them sleep in the basement.

After being tackled by a wave of hugs, kisses and _Happy Birthday!_ 's we put our bags down in my room, on the bed which is spread with one of Grannie Amell’s ridiculous Christmas quilts, then go back out to the car and bring in presents.

We stopped by his place on the way over, after staying at the preserve until we started to get hungry.

He wanted to swap out things in his bag and needed to get the presents he had ready.

I had told him he didn’t have to get presents.

But of course he had.

He’d not made a big deal about it.

I think they’re framed prints, based on size and shape and weight.

He’d wrapped them in plain red paper with white ribbon, crisp neat corners… military precision (making my messily, haphazardly wrapped gifts look as though a badger had at them in the dark before they found their way under Mom’s tree by comparison).

All said and done, we start to settle into the living room where Andy, Isabela, Merrill and the twins are already entrenched under a collection of festive throws, drinking an assortment of hot, and randomly spiked, beverages.

Also?

There’s pie.

Rather than cake.

Because I prefer pie.

I’m so happy right now.

 _It’s my birthday._

 _I’m eating pie._

 _I just had sex twice in less than twenty four hours._

 _I climbed a tree._

 _Fen’s here._

 _Everyone’s here._

And… _warm, freshly baked pie_ with overly generous dollops of really vanillay vanilla ice cream.

“This is _glorious_ ,” I say stupidly, my eyes closed, shoveling the better part of a second slice into my mouth.

 _Click._

“Really?!” I look at Fen, who is, damn him, smirking and checking the camera. “Really?!”

Bethy’s on the floor next to Andy, and rolls over to look up at us.

“Because what the world _needs_ are pictures of me stuffing my face,”

I set down my plate and lean towards him, reaching weakly for the camera.

He easily leans out of my reach and turns the camera off, setting it down on the table, “You were just really enjoying that…” he says so quietly that only I hear him, and with just the faintest hint of that _edge_ …

 _He’s making pie sexual._

 _He’s making my birthday-pie sexual._

 _I’m not complaining, per se…_

 _And… I really was enjoying that pie--_

Bethany laughs, “You mean _more_ pictures of you stuffing your face?”

“There are others?” Fen asks her, looking past me to her, one curious eyebrow quirking.

“No, Bethany…” I implore her, “Don’t.”

She’s watching us with a kind of critical x-ray vision that reminds me suddenly, and somewhat alarmingly, of Isabela. She smiles at him, “Lots.”

“Ooh… kitten,” Isabela, sitting on the couch very near Carver who is looking positively _pervy_ sitting that close to such a busty woman, is also looking at Fen and I standing close together like she can see right through us, “You’re blushing!”

 _Am I?_

“So cute.”

Mom shoves a plate of pie into Fen’s hands, “Oh god, yes! We have a whole _album_ of Garrett eating,” she laughs and pats my belly, “I swear he never stopped eating for longer than twenty minute stretches for the first eighteen years of his life!”

I sigh, and look at Fen who is smiling and licking a little bit of melted ice cream from his thumb.

 _Dammit._

…

There’s no formal meal, as is my birthday tradition.

Instead, everything is out at once and people eat whatever they want, in whatever order they want.

When I was a kid, this was my preferred way of eating… but was highly impractical.

So my birthday was kind of the one day it happened.

It’s great. Paradise. I go nuts.

I inhale _everything_ , as is my way.

So by around nine I’m laid out on the couch drifting in and our of a food coma.

I have reached the point of no return and un-buttoned the fly of my jeans which have become too constricting.

And that’s when the presents, and all my loved ones, come to me.

Fen sits next to me on one side while Andy takes the other. I ease myself into a sitting position and open the gifts that Bethany excitedly puts into my hands.

A new food and water dish for Bradley that Bethany has painted herself, depicting Bradley chasing an attractive lady dog across a Van Gogh-esque starry sky.

A $10 Starbucks gift card from Carver (who thinks he’s _so_ funny).

A tiny, delicate little stained-glass night-light in the shape of what actually takes me a second to recognize as an artistically rendered dick and balls from my mother.

 _At least she’s making stained-glass again._

Andy, Bela and Merrill jointly give me _Spartacus; Blood and Sand_ on Blu-Ray, which immediately cracks me up. Painfully… I might add, given just how full I am.

 _The card is addressed to, “…Our Darling Sparty.”_

“What did you do with that armor, kitten?” Isabela asks.

“Oh, god… it’s uh,” I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, “on my closet floor!”

Bethany hands me Fen’s present last.

It’s wrapped in plain blue paper. No ribbon.

He leans forward next to me, elbows on his thighs, watching me.

I tear open the paper.

A very beat up, very old book.

The front cover barely clinging to the battered spine.

I’d say this was a well loved book.

Well, _well_ loved.

“The Hobbit.”

I look at him.

He’s smiling behind his hands, “Open it.”

I carefully open the cover.

“It’s…” I stare at him, “Is this a first edition?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus!” _How much--_

He laughs, “Before you ask, not _that_ much.”

Mom is peering over my shoulder, intrigued, readers perched on her nose.

“It’s damaged, obviously,” he clears his throat, “Very. It’s not exactly what the collectors are looking for.”

The book is barely clinging on to a structure that could be called book-like, that’s true.

“I asked Varric if he knew anyone who had…” his knee touches mine, “Any Tolkien first editions… and this was the only one. He’s uh… a very connected man.”

“He is,” I say quietly.

Inside the cover, in a child’s handwriting in splotchy ink from what I presume is 1938, is scrawled “ _BOBBY._ ”

I swallow and touch the signature with my thumb.

“T-thank you.”

 _I want to cry._

But instead, I reach for him and kiss him.

I’m dimly aware of my family’s collective little titter of loving-approval at this.

And I know he is too.

He pulls back slightly, and I kiss him again, quick.

He grins at me, “You like it?”

“It’s... my favorite. I love…” _I’m really overwhelmed_ , “ _I love Bilbo Baggins._ ”

“Yeah, yeah…” he laughs, and I love every single person in this room… but at that moment, there’s just him, and that quiet laugh, and the comforting weight of _The Hobbit_ against my thighs, “He's no Gandalf, but he’s all right.”

…

Everyone changes into pajamas and then settles back into the living room to watch a few episodes of _Spartacus_. Mom is really into it.

I leave the couch to get a glass of water, leaving a Garrett-shaped space next to Fen under the blanket we’re sharing.

And under which he’s been lightly stroking my knee, which is poking through a hole in the sweatpants I’m wearing.

 _In other words, under which he’s been driving me slowly mad._

I’m pouring water from the Brita when a pair of long thermal-covered arms wrap around me from behind, squeezing me tightly.

“Andy?”

“You deserve this, Garrett,” he says quietly, smiling against my back.

I knee the fridge closed and set down the glass on the counter and hug his arms, “Thank you for helping me.”

He nods.

“You’ve got a really good heart,” he lets me go.

“So do you,” I face him.

He shrugs, “It gets the job done.”

I laugh softly and pick up my glass.

“So… they’re all dying to ask,” he smirks, reaching past me into the fridge for a beer, “but they’re behaving. It’s _killing_ Bela. You two…”

“What?” I look as innocent as I possibly can.

“You’re going to make me say it?” he opens the bottle with Mom’s church key.

“I think I am, yeah.”

“You hit a home run then?”

I swallow my water.

“It’s pretty fucking obvious,” he smiles, and points at me, “Nobody this loved-up and happy hasn’t just had amazing, _finally_ , three-year-drought ending sex,” he holds my upper arms, “…with someone they actually care about.”

I laugh, and nod.

And he hugs me again.

…

When we finally go to bed, shooed out of the living room so that Mom can no doubt hang her hideous Hawke-Stockings, there is a photo album on the nestled on the pillows.

“No…”

He goes in ahead of me and looks at it.

Just at the cover.

“Damn you, Bethany!” I close the door.

He looks over his shoulder at me, “Can I?”

I sigh dramatically and fall on the bed, face down, “If you must…”

I moan into a quilted snowman as I feel his weight settle on top of me, legs draped over mine, his mouth close to my ear, “I don’t have to… if you don’t want me to…”

Teeth close on my ear.

I gasp into the snowman.

He soothes the bite, as he always does, with a soft kiss.

“Go ahead and look,” I mumble.

He chuckles and rolls slightly to my side, pulling the album closer with a crooked finger in the coiled spine.

I turn my head to watch his face.

He opens the cover and laughs, involuntarily.

“Oh, god, _Garrett!_ ”

I sigh and look. _It’s going to be like that._

Yup.

“That would be five year old me. With a box of chocolate cupcakes intended to be shared with my kindergarten class.”

His laughter is shaking the mattress beneath us.

“Needless to say, the cupcakes never made it to the classroom; Mom left me alone in the car with them for about ten minutes… which, was really a mistake on her part.”

A completely blessed out five year old me, sitting there with a pink box full of empty cupcake wrappers and a face smeared in frosting.

“It’s… you’re…” he has his face in his hands, “so _fucking_ cute.”

There are pages and pages devoted to infant me eating various things, messily, and he flips through them slowly… thoroughly amused.

 _I wonder what it’s like to see a baby picture of someone you’re sleeping with._

 _Is that weird?_

 _I don’t know!_

 _With Fen… I mean… he doesn’t have any baby pictures for me to see, so…_

 _Maybe I’ll ask him sometime._

 _Maybe I’ll ask him after he inevitably sees the Bathtime Album._

 _If it’s ever going to be weird, that’s the time._

“What!?”

“Oh…” I look over his shaking shoulder, “Yeah… I like pie. There was a pie eating contest. I placed second.”

There are a few shots of me in the contest, a blur of pie and curly hair, but the one that really tickles him is the one where I’m standing there, eight years old holding a 2nd place ribbon and completely covered in blueberry pie filling from hairline to waistband.

He turns the page.

There’s me and Dad.

He’s wearing Carver, who is a tiny baby and little more than a swath of black hair in a Bojrn on Dad’s chest, and we’re both eating turkey legs.

I’m dressed as a pirate. Dad’s dressed as something halfway between a pirate and a Dad with a baby strapped to his chest.

“The Renn Faire. We used to go every year.”

He chuckles quietly, looking at nine year old me tearing viciously into a greasy turkey leg bigger than my face at the meaty part, and then looks at my Dad.

“You…” he looks at me, “you look _so much_ like him.”

I nod and press my chin into his shoulder.

“Hmm.”

He presses the side of his head against mine.

“He was _dashing_ ,” I say finally, smoothing the plastic over Dad’s face, “I think the dashing-gene skipped me.”

“Hmm.”

 _I miss him._

 _I miss the sound of his voice._

"Mom says I sound like him, but I don’t hear it."

I turn the page after a minute, because he won’t.

I appreciate that he won’t.

“I miss him.”

He nods, and kisses my knuckles.

He looks through the rest of the album, which ends most recently with a truly unflattering picture of me looking sad, and red eyed, eating an entire watermelon alone with a spoon on the back patio in just a pair of board shorts.

“I… may have been a little high,” I say, laughing and rubbing the small of his back while he laughs into his folded arms.

“The fact that this exists…” he sighs, voice sounding raw, “makes me happy.”

“I’m glad,” I say, pulling it from his hands and closing it.

It’s about one in the morning now.

I yawn and flop down next to him. We’re lying across the bed sideways with our legs hanging off but I could sleep right here, just like this.

Especially when he turns and curls into me, head on my chest over my heart.

“Hey, Garrett.”

“Uh-huh?”

“You’re dashing. In your own way. In an… awkward way.”

I laugh, and wrap my arms around him, “Oh, thanks!”

“Hmm.”

We actually do end up falling asleep like that, feet hanging off the side of the mattress, on top of the blankets.

I wake up in the middle of the night, cold, and prod him awake, pulling him with me under the blankets where it’s warm.

I turn my back to him, and he wraps himself around me, fitting into place.

“I like awkward,” he says softly to the back of my neck.

…

This is how Mom always wanted Christmas morning.

The house is loud, and happy, and full to bursting.

Coffee is spiked and hot.

And everyone, and I mean everyone, is cajoled into wearing one of her stupid Christmas hats from the trunk.

Everyone.

“Oh… come on.”

He looks at me as if I have finally lost my mind.

I’m holding a Santa hat in my hands.

And it’s meant to go onto Fen’s head.

It needs to.

Something like amused horror, if that’s a thing that can happen, flits across his face.

I myself am wearing the felt reindeer ears and antlers that are more or less a matched set to the ones that Bethany is wearing (except that hers have little red bows… I feel that her opposition to gendered-ears will eventually lead to us switching antlers at some point in the day… I’m not bothered by this eventuality).

“Look… it makes Mom happy. Really happy. And even Carver’s stuck in one…”

I gesture over my shoulder to Carver who is sulking in a drooping Christmas tree hat, gold star dangling annoyingly in his face, “Also, it’ll be real effing cute.”

“Hmph,” he sighs, “Fine.”

I laugh, and with great care, put the hat on his head.

He scowls up at me, while I adjust it.

 _So disgruntled. So fucking cute._

I kiss him.

“Hey… Merry Christmas, Fen.”

He smiles.

“Hey, cute boys,” Isabela says, and we actually both look at her… which is embarrassing, “Smile.”

Also wearing a Santa hat (with little plastic devil horns in the white fuzzy trim) she’s dressed ridiculously… but it’s charming in its own way; a very tight, very little red dress, more cleavage than is respectable on a fine Christian holiday such as this one, and thigh-high striped stockings. She’s holding a little point and click digital camera.

She takes our picture and trots off… _bouncing_ back toward the dining room.

We’re alone.

He slips his hands inside my thick cardigan (yes, the red one with the polar bears... it's my favorite), wrapping them around my sides.

I kiss his forehead.

 _Waking up with him on a Christmas morning?_

 _Whatever I did, in my life that was good enough that karma let me have this?_

 _Let me find him?_

 _Let him find me?_

 _I’m glad I did whatever that was… I’m so glad._

There is a rush as Mom herds everyone back into the living room.

It’s time for Hawke-Stockings and presents.

Merrill gets Santa Duty, looking adorably accurate in her North Pole Workshop Elf hat with fake pointy ears poking out above her ears… she’s giddy to get started.

But first there are stockings.

The Hawke-Stockings are just as hideous as I remember… sequins and fake jewels, beading, appliqués… they are monstrosities. Even the new ones. The ones with _Andy_ and _Bela_ and _Merrill_ and _Fen_ written on them lovingly in puff paint… those less covered in bracken, are still ugly.

Ugly though they may be, they are also full of the British candy that was a staple in our house for so many years…

 _It’s one of those many bittersweet little moments that I have during the holidays._

 _Where Dad feels so present._

 _And so not._

But I love Jaffa cakes.

I really do.

I open mine immediately and start inhaling them with my coffee.

I offer Fen one, and he takes it, prying it carefully out of the plastic wrap.

Merrill takes Santa Duty very seriously, and hands out each present with great pomp, reading the whole label out loud.

“To Leandra, from Fen!” she says, holding a flat square gift in her hands.

Mom sets down her coffee and reaches out, looking at Fen with soft eyes, “I get to go first? I never go first!”

Fen smiles and looks down at his folded hands.

Something squeezes around my heart.

 _God, Fen._

I touch his back lightly.

She tears open the paper and laughs, throwing her head back and putting a hand over her chest, “Oh, fuck! Ahaha! It’s perfect!”

She sits up and slips on her readers, lifting the frame to see it better.

“What is it, Leandra??” Isabela is perched in Andy’s lap on the loveseat, where he’s got his arms around her waist looking particularly loved-up himself. He’s wearing the little top hat Mom can never convince anyone to wear.

He’s kind of pulling it off.

Mom lifts the framed picture, a beautiful black and white shot of her from Thanksgiving, a glass of wine in one hand and a joint in the other.

She’s laughing.

Both in the picture and now, here.

 _God he takes beautiful pictures._

“Fen, sweetheart!” she stands up and sets the frame down, carefully making her way to him, stepping over Carver and Bethany. He looks up at her.

She kisses the top of his polyester-Santa-hat covered head.

He closes his eyes.

“Thank you so much,” she says, quietly to him.

He nods, and says thickly, “You’re welcome.”

She cups his cheek for a moment before making her way back to her seat.

I want to hug him.

Tight.

And never let him go.

He leans back, into me, as she finds her seat.

And I don’t hug him tight, but I do put my arms around him. I do feel his heart beating under my hand.

“Okay, next then! Merrill distributes a pair of pajamas to Carver, from Mom, three scented candles from Mom to Andy, Bela and Fen (she has a friend at a hippie store downtown that colds candle making workshops… she made them each a candle with the scent that she felt exemplified them. Andy’s smells like warm sugar, Bela’s like cinnamon and chocolate and Fen’s smells like anise… which is so perfect that it makes me question how closely my mother has smelled Fen).

There is one for Merrill as well, but she insists on setting aside her gifts for the time being.

She very excitedly pulls out a big white box and reads, “To Garrett from the Wingmen!”

Fen looks at me sideways and sits forward, opening up space for the box, "The Wingmen?"

"Oh. Ha. I'll uh... explain. Later," I slide off the ribbon and open the lid, lift away the tissue paper.

“Pants!”

And it all clicks into place.

I have the hardest time buying pants.

The worst time.

Hence the reason, or the real reason, I wear pants until they literally fall apart at the seams… and all my knees are torn and/or patched.

I’m really tall.

And also really cheap.

Tall pants are expensive.

“You didn’t…” I look at the three of them, cuddled together, and stand up, unfolding the pants.

“Those are _nice_ pants, sweetheart,” Mom says impressed.

They are. Very nice. And I suspect tailored for me.

I’d gone with Andy one day, during his meltdown period, when he said he just needed to get out.

He took me to the place he gets his clothes tailored and sometimes, when he’s feeling like it… constructed.

I’d never been to a real tailor. He talked me into getting a fitting done.

Which was weird.

I actually toyed with the idea of buying some nice pants.

As that polite little weird tailor was working around me, and I was standing on a block, I had these grand fantasies about what my life would be like in a really nice pair or pants tailored just for me.

How sophisticated I’d be!

How well dressed!

I could see it all unfolding…

Until I asked how much such a pair of life-changing pants would cost and quickly, and as politely as possibly, extricated myself from the situation.

But the three of them had gotten those pants made for me.

Pants to actually fit.

 _I want to cry into my new pants._

“You’re a grown man, Garrett,” Andy says, his cheek pressed to Bela’s arm, “It’s time.”

“I’ll take good care of them,” I say, genuinely choked up, holding them at my hips, in front of my torn, threadbare jeans.

“You’d better, kitten!” Bela says, scratching Andy’s jaw.

“They _were_ very expensive, Garrett,” Merrill says, toying with her braid, “I don’t say that to guilt trip you, but just to try to encourage you to not, you know, get mustard on them or anything.”

I fold the pants carefully, with the reverence of a boy scout folding a flag, and put them back in the tissue paper before going over and kissing each of them on the cheek, and saying thank you.

“They’re just pants,” Andy says softly to me, smiling broadly.

“No they’re not,” I say back.

Merrill distributes pajamas from Mom to Bethany and me, and then I stand up, “Merrill, I know you’re Santa… but Santa gets gifts too.”

She sits in my seat, next to Fen, looking up at me expectantly.

I give her mine first.

Because I can.

It’s big.

She tears off the paper.

“Oh, Garrett.”

She holds the frame with one hand and covers her mouth with the other, looking up at me over the edge.

She’s going to start crying.

“Merrill?”

“You…”

I glance at Fen, who is watching her with a new kind of warmth I haven’t really seen in him before.

“You painted me something green?”

I nod, “Of course I did. I said I would!”

 _I’ve been working on it forever._

 _The green… just wouldn’t behave._

 _Wouldn’t be right._

 _And, yes… I admit.. the green in question is absolutely the green of Fen’s eyes._

 _My favorite color._

 _But… this painting was always for Merrill._

 _Always._

She carefully peels away the rest of the paper, Fen helping by balling it up, getting it out of her way.

“I thought you'd forgotten. It’s beautiful,” she says softly, “No one’s ever painted for me before.”

She looks at it for a few more moments before very carefully handing it to Andy and standing and launching herself at me.

I catch her, and hold her tightly.

“I’ll hang it over my bed!”

I laugh, “That’s the most I could ever ask for.”

I give her Mom’s scented candle (minty with a little bit of rosemary) and a $10 gift card to IHOP from Carver, which she more than graciously accepts.

But then she insists on resuming her duties and gives me back my seat.

She can’t lift it, but there is a huge package behind the tree for Carver.  
“To Carver, from Garrett (and everybody)!” she says, poking her head around the branches.

He drags it out to the center of the room and tears into it.

“What??”

“I felt that you deserved this,” I say, failing to hold back a laugh.

But he’s genuinely happy.

And that’s what matters.

“What is…” Mom gets up to look in the box.

It is chock-a-block full of porn.

“It’s from all of us… we all chipped in.”

DVD’s.

Magazines.

Literature.

And a written promise to pay for whatever online subscription he would most like.

 _It had been an interesting couple of shopping trips._

 _Once I took Fen._

 _Once I took Bela and Andy._

 _We cleared out the two adult stores selection of Big Breast genre materials._

He lifts the box of condoms I left on the top of the stuff in the box and looks over his shoulder at me.

“Just in case,” I smile.

He stands up, and hugs me.

And it’s one of the few times in my life I can remember Carver really hugging me without someone ordering him to.

Isabela crawls forward and starts digging through the box. Carver returns to his spot and does the same.

Merrill hands Andy and Bela two framed prints from Fen, both of them in each different picture from Thanksgiving.

 _They’re beautiful people, anyway, but in those pictures… it’s like he catches something they don't realize is there._

Carver’s gift cards are handed out. Andy, Bela and Merrill give my mother a plush, smiling pillow in the shape of a uterus with fallopian tube arms which she then cuddles with for the rest of the morning.

Andy gets his friendship bracelet, and immediately puts it on, offering me his wrist so that I can tie it into place, saying “This is well-made, G. Fine craftsmanship!”

I painted for Bela as well, or… actually… I had our collaboration framed; The sheet from my palette upon which she and I had painted a naked man with an enormous dick.

Bethany made coffee-cup sleeves for everyone, which are adorable.

She passes them out, unwrapped. Andy stands up and says that he left a few gifts in the car… and Mom says that she thinks we all need a break.

More coffee is poured, and British candy is torn into.

I ask Fen to follow me.

He smirks and nods.

In my room, there are two presents that neither of us put under the tree.

One is square, wrapped neatly in that crisp red paper.

And the other is a squishy, uneven lump of paper and tape and a ribbon that fails to tie the whole thing together.

I hand him my lump.

He hands me the square.

“Go first,” he says, sitting on the bed next to me.

I tear into it.

“Oh my god! Look at him! He’s so regal!”

He has framed the most elegant picture of Bradley I’ve ever seen.

I’m there too… looking…

Well… I look good.

But I’m no Bradley.

“Fen!” I kiss him, “When was this?”

He kisses my jaw, “That day that you came with me to the park, when I was shooting that engagement set--”

“Oh. Oh! Really?” Yup… I’m wearing the shirt I wore that day, “I didn’t even know you took this.”

He laughs softly, “I’m glad you like it.”

I kiss him, “I _love_ it.”

He digs a thumb into the lump of paper around my present and it falls apart quickly.

A thick woolly coil of red and black striped scarf falls out.

He holds it in his hands, “Did you… you _made_ this?”

“I did!”

“You knit?” he’s smiling, rubbing the scarf between his fingers.

“I do. Yeah. I… I ended up working on it during breaks a work… it was very soothing.”

He presses his lips together, failing to suppress a growing smile, “You made this for me?”

“Yeah. I hope the color’s all right. You don’t wear a lot of red, but--”

“It’s perfect. I… it’s…”

He lifts it up, wrapping it loosely around his neck and shoulders.

“It’s…”

I kiss him, holding his jaw, fingers warm between his skin and the scarf.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, “Hawke.”

I wrap my fingers around his wrist, feeling the string I tied there last night, still there.

“Thank _you_.”

…

“Is everyone in?”

“Uhh…” Fen laughs, leaning back, “Carver’s out a little--”

“Carver! Squish in!!” Bethany reaches for him and yanks him closer to her.

He’s still wearing the tree hat and still looking positively forlorn, gazing with unabashed longing towards his box of new porn.

While Fen and I were still upstairs, where we, uh… stayed for a while… the rest of the gifts had been exchanged and more spiking of coffee had taken place.

Mom wanted group pictures.

Fen happily obliged her. First doing just the three of us kids, together… with her directing us from over Fen’s shoulder… and then the four of us together… just Andy, Bela and Merrill… just the four of us… then… everyone.

Together.

He’s taken a handful of shots now, and based on how much squirming and laughing and shifting is happening… I can’t imagine more than one is salvageable.

Bethany’s next to me, holding onto my shoulders. She pulls me down to her level.

“He’s bloody gorgeous, Gare-Bear,” she whispers in my ear.

“I know!” I say back.

“Uh… Merrill,” Fen looks up at her, “In a little bit.”

Merrill scoots in closer to Bela who is draped across Andy’s lap down in front.

“Great.”

“Fen, sweetheart, get in here.”

Mom stands up.

He shrugs, “No… it’s okay, don’t worry about--”

“Nope! No. I am _insisting_. That thing has a timer,” she grabs a stool and drags it over to where he’s standing, “Set the time and hop in!”

He hesitates for just a second, but very quickly focuses on the camera and sets it up on the stool.

We have to reposition to get in, as the camera is significantly lower there than it was in his hands.

He sets the timer and walks over, getting in front of me and next to Mom.

The light blinks.

Counting down.

I look down and see that Mom has grabbed Fen’s hand, holding it on her knee.

And I…

 _I can’t stop smiling._

I reach for his shoulder.

And the flash goes off.

That one picture actually ended up being a keeper.

Against all the odds.

Of which, let’s be honest here, there were a lot.

...

“Where’s you champagne?!”

Isabela careens towards us with two glasses of champagne in her hands.

“It’s important!”

Fen takes his first, foam sloshing across his fingers, and then I take mine.

We’re on Andy’s roof, waiting for the countdown to begin.

Waiting for this year to end and the next one to start.

Mom offered to host, but Andy had insisted harder.

He had even cleaned his apartment.

Well, it had been a group effort.

And despite the cold, we’d spent most of the night up here, bundled up, waiting for the laptop streaming A New Years Rockin' Eve to let us know that the pre-recorded New Years Eve in Times Square was ready to play in Pacific Time.

We strung extra Christmas lights around the roof (I had plenty to spare) and while it’s cold…

The company is really good.

Mom and the twins are here, eating and drinking and talking excitedly with the others.

Mom has her arms around Andy's waist as they listen to Merrill tell the engrossing story of the last New Years she spent in London before moving here.

We’re standing apart from the rest, near the edge, looking out at Kirkwall.

A strong wind blows cold and he shivers, even with all those layers on.

“Christ!” he hands me his glass, “hold this.”

I take it and he pulls a pair of gloves out of his pocket, slipping them on.

He takes his glass back, and I wrap my arms around him.

He chuckles and leans in, “How are you always so warm?”

“It’s a natural gift. So that I can do things like this for other people who don’t have such powerful internal furnaces.”

“Hmm.”

He’s wearing the scarf I made for him, wrapped thick and warm around his neck.

Times Square alerts me to the fact that the countdown will begin in one minute.

Times Square.

New York.

Where I will be going in March.

 _It’s still there._

 _Still…_

“Fen?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Will you come to New York with me?”

I expect him to go tense.

I have tried to bring it up before… and that’s what happened.

He went tense, and I shied away… but he doesn’t do that this time. If anything he does the opposite, deflating a little against me.

But he doesn’t let go of me.

And I don’t let go of him.

We stand there together, holding glasses of champagne behind each other's backs.

“I mean…” I swallow, “You don’t have to. I… I just thought… I mean… I’d like you to come. It’d… mean a lot to me. And, uh…”

He’s silent, his forehead pressed against my chest.

I babble, “If not, I’ll take Mom. She… uh… she always… she lived there, once, a lot time ago… and… I mean… it’s one room. So, that sounds less than appealing… staying in a room with my Mother… I, I think it’s one bed. I mean, I could probably change that… I hope--”

He laughs, a rough, tired kind of laugh, “I want to go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He nods against me.

A minute's gone by. They're all close together around the laptop.

“I uh…”

“ **Ten!** ”

“I think I need to.”

“ **Nine!** ”

“For me…”

“ **Eight!** ”

“…and you.”

“ **Seven!** ”

“You sure?”

“ **Six!** ”

“Very.”

“ **Five!** ”

“Fen?”

“ **Four!** ”

“Garrett.”

“ **Three!** ”

“I--”

“ **Two!** ”

He kisses me, puling me down to him.

“ **ONE! Happy New Year!!!** ”

My last kiss of one year turns into my first kiss of the next.

“I do, too,” he says, holding my face close to his, his hand strong at the nape of my neck. His eyes are closed tightly.

“Happy New Year, Fen.”

“Happy New Year, Hawke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very, very much for reading this story and following along with me! The kind comments and excitement and art have been truly overwhelming! This chapter (43) is not The End by any means... but I'm back in classes now and that means that updates will be coming much, much slower.
> 
> I am really looking forward to writing Act 3/New York! So... don't think this is abandoned if it's a little quiet for a while.
> 
> At this point, if you'd like to read a little more and haven't already done so, check out 'Margarita, Blended' which I can now say takes place in between the coming chapters. It's Andy/Bela with Garrett's POV and some (uh, sexy) flashbacks.
> 
> Again, THANK YOU!!!


	44. Chapter 44

“Okay, so, who do we have today?”

Done with the last rush of customers, I shut off the espresso machine’s steam and look over my shoulder.

“Well!”

Dana, who is way more excited than anyone has a right to be with an art history book in their hands this early in the morning, looks up at me, eyes bright under uneven red bangs.

Isabela calls her _My Number One Fan_.

“I was reading about Frida Kahlo last night!” she opens the enormous book to a post-it marked page.

I wipe my hands on my apron and lean my elbows on the counter in front of her, looking at the glossy pages as she turns the book to me.

“I _love_ Frida,” I swoon for effect, “What do you think?”

She scratches her freckled nose and leans in.

“There’s so much…” she looks up from _Viva la Vida_ , her broad face close to mine, she smiles, “Pain. And beauty. And… it feels so...”

I smile and glance down at the pages, “She said that she painted what was real to her…” she’s totally enrapt, “ _Hmm._ A critic said her work was like a ribbon tied around a bomb. What do you think about that?”

“Oh…” she says reverently, turning the page to two more self portraits, “I… that’s beautiful. Her technique feels so… organic!”

I grin as Isabela squeezes behind me, pressing a hand lightly against the small of my back, “Have you ever seen one of her paintings in person?”

She shakes her head, “No. Have you?!”

I nod, “Oh yeah! I've seen this one,” I point to the wedding portrait, big fat Diego and delicate birdlike Frida, hand in hand, “The reds are so much redder than you think. They really kind of… _surprise_ you. Every time.”

Dana, My Number One Fan, sighs.

After the _Champion of Kirkwall_ article ran, there had been this gaggle of teenage girls (and a few boys, and a few boys old enough to be considered men) that was coming in… a lot.

I mean, sure. It _was_ flattering. Absolutely.

The _guys_ that came in… that was…

Flattering. Also.

But I’m _taken_.

Off the market.

Not that the market seemed to have cared about me one way or the other when I _wasn’t_ taken--

But, anyway, regardless… January came and went and they mostly went with it.

Probably found someone else, some other non-champion but possibly cuter barista. In some other coffee shop.

Though my pride may be wounded, I soldier on.

Dana, however, is the last of the gaggle that still comes in every day, with her art history book under her arm. She is a fifteen year old, home-schooled art enthusiast (who admittedly hasn’t got an artistic bone in her body).

Most days of the week, she comes in and orders a hot chocolate and sits here at her spot at the counter and when I’m not serving I’m here, with her, up to my neck in oh-so-familiar art history. Whichever artist she read about the night before.

Her enthusiasm is contagious though. Absolutely contagious.

“Really? Have you ever seen her Blue House? In Mexico?”

“No, I haven’t. But—“

As if on cue, the front door opens and a cool burst of February blows in.

It’s 9:05, then.

Fen’s bundled up, scarf wrapped thickly around his throat, coat buttoned all the way up.

He looks tired.

And windblown.

But mostly tired.

 _Oh, Fen._

He’s had this cough for a few days now.

And as of yesterday, he’s been losing his voice.

But if one were to ask him about it, innocently, you know… _Hey, Fen, sounding a little under the weather there, pal_ he’d rolls his eyes and reply that he doesn’t have a cough at all, and that he’s fine.

It’s kind of _weird_ actually.

I had this cold.

 _I, uh, very likely gave it to him._

 _I mean… I tried not to!_

 _We spent a couple of nights apart._

 _But here we are anyway._

He coughed all night last night.

I woke up every time.

This morning, I woke up with my hand on the center of his chest and I felt that rattle.

As an asthmatic kid who constantly had “harmless” colds turning into bronchitis into, in the worst case scenarios, pneumonia… I feel like an expert on the subtle variances of sounds and origins of coughs… and the depth of this cough has me on alert.

He’s ignoring it.

Today he’s shooting a book signing at Theirin’s.

And he has a wedding booked out of town this weekend.

I glance back at Dana, “But Fen has. Been there. To Frida’s house.”

“Fen your _boyfriend_ ,” she says quietly, grinning broadly. Cheeky.

I smile and shrug, pushing away from the counter dramatically.

I turn towards Fen as he’s slowly making his way to the register, “Hey, Sicky.”

He grunts, and rasps, “I’m not sick.”

I pour his coffee, “Did you drink that tea?”

I left him in bed when I left for work, but not before kissing his head and telling him that I’d left the bitter and unsettlingly savory Throat Coat tea that has been a feeling-poorly Hawke staple for as long as I can remember, with a lemon, and a little honey, on the kitchen counter.

He nods, “Yeah.”

I wince. That sounds painful.

I put the lid on his coffee and pass it to him.

He is forbidden from paying now. After selling a second set of his prints, Varric had made a declaration on the matter.

Isabela took it a step further and drew a little caricature of Fen and scotch-taped in onto the register with a scrawled note:

“Do Not Accept Money from This Man.

He drinks for free.

– The Management.”

It looks like him and everything.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, I catch myself staring at it and smiling like an idiot.

It’s embarrassing.

“Hey…” he coughs and looks up at me, kind of drowsily, at the sound of my voice, “What time are you done today?”

“Arainai’s thing is supposed to go until three,” I can barely hear him, and when his voice cracks, he grimaces.

“Three? I’ll come pick you up.”

“I’m fine,” he says dismissively.

“It’s a long walk home. And it’s cold. And you’re _sick_.”

He makes a kind of quiet grunting, scoffing noise and coughs, then drinks his coffee, avoiding my eye line, “You don’t have to, Garrett.”

“I want to.”

He glances up at me.

And shrugs.

I smile, “And, I’ll uh…” I say quietly, leaning with both hands on the counter in front of me, “We’ll go to bed early tonight like exciting young people.”

“Hmm,” he reaches out just before turning to leave, and covers my hand with his, for just a second, stroking my thumb with his once before turning to go.

“Oh, hey.”

He pauses and looks back, up at me.

“You’ve been to Frida Kahlo’s house, right?”

He nods, and looks past me at Dana, and croaks, “Frida Kahlo today?”

She nods.

He sips his coffee, clears his throat and says softly, “ _Pies... para qué los quiero si tengo alas pa'volar...” in Spanish, which somehow comes out less croaky than his English._

 _“‘Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly?’” I translate, holding his gaze. I don’t know Spanish… but I do know Frida._

He smiles, tightening that knot in my gut that’s so intensely sensitive to _him_ , before looking back to Dana and nodding agreeably and heading out, walking back out into February with his chin against his chest.

She blushes, from the neck of her red sweater up to her red hairline.

Dana might be My Number One Fan… but I think she’s an even bigger fan of Fen.

Not that I blame her.

“How many languages does that man speak?” when the door shuts behind him, Isabela shakes her head looking at me with that _you-lucky-bastard_ -look.

I grin, like a lucky bastard, “Lots.”

…

“Hey!”

I walk into Theirin’s just as Andy and Zev Arainai, author and apparent all around Renaissance Man, are walking towards the door together, talking with their heads close together. I know of Zev through Andy and Bela… but I don’t know him.

I mean… I feel like I _know him_ after Bela shared a few lines from this newly published collection of poetry he was signing today.

She did this impromptu reading after Dana had left for the day, thank god.

 _Erotic_ doesn’t begin to cover it.

“Hey,” Andy smiles and tucks his hair behind his ears and I smile.

I have been told, by Bela, that one of Zev’s new poems is about Andy and that one is about her.

She left it up to me to guess which is which it is after reading the whole book.

I…

I mean I’m _reading_ it. How could I not? I’ve been challenged.

Andy’s arm brushes Zev’s, but he’s looking at me, “You need to take _him_ home,” he says, jutting his chin towards a wracking cough from behind a few rows of books, “He’s about five minutes from losing a lung.”

Zev looks at me, “Oh… so _this_ is our consumptive, broody photographer’s man?”

Andy laughs softly, “Yup.”

“Ahh…” Zev smiles at me, and slides a hand across Andy’s back.

“Consumptive?”

I hear Fen cough again and turn, getting it, and saying goodbye.

When I find him, he’s crouched over his equipment bag.

I kneel with him and help fit everything in.

“Thanks,” he sits back and doesn’t look up at me.

He sounds worse since this morning.

Out of reflex I put my hand on his forehead, brushing aside the thick white hair that’s fallen across his face as he’s bent over the bag.

 _Fever._

“Fen.”

He sighs.

“You’re really hot.”

“Flatterer,” the words scrapes out of his throat.

He zips up the bag and I grab the strap, lifting it and slipping in across my own chest.

“You know who’s really great company when you’re sick? Bradley.”

He looks at me completely unamused.

“He’s like… a heavy, furry, unconditionally loving sickness-sponge.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’ll make you feel better. In exchange, all he asks is that he gets to lay on your legs, for… hours. And gaze at you lovingly.”

I do not say, _Which is also more or less what I would like to do tonight._

He shoulders the shop door open, “You don’t want…” he tries, and fails, to clear his throat, “you could just drop me off at my place.”

“Is that…” I step in line next to him, “I… I don’t mind.”

He doesn’t look at me.

“When you’re sick, I mean,” I squeeze my keys, digging a thumb between his strap and my chest… _fuck, this bag is heavy!_ , “it’s nice to have someone, you know… take care of you.”

“I’m not…” he stops, and sneezes.

And, okay… it shouldn’t be, but it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen… cute even though he groans after and presses the heel of his hand against his chest which clearly hurts.

 _When did sneezes get cute?_

“I’ll make you food,” I unlock and open the car door for him.

“Oh,” he smirks, “Okay then.”

“That’s all it takes?” I open the back door and put his bag in on the seat while he gets in and closes the door.

By the time I get into the driver’s seat, he’s buckled in and almost asleep.

He shrugs with his eyes closed, and smiles, “You make good food, Hawke.”

…

“Yeah, well, he’s on the couch.”

“On your couch?”

I’m cradling the phone between my shoulder and ear, careful to keep my raw-chicken hands away from coming into contact with anything.

“Yes.”

“And you’re taking good care of him?”

Bethany’s smiling. I can _hear_ it.

“Yes,” I sigh, going to the sink to wash my hands.

“I love you two. Jesus Christ, you’re adorable,” she laughs, “Have you told Mom?”

“That he’s on my couch?”

“No, well, yeah. That he’s sick.”

I laugh, “Ha… no. I don’t think he’s ready for Nurse Leandra. I think he’s barely ready for Nurse Garrett.”

I shake my head trying to dislodge the immediate mental image of myself in a nurse uniform and nearly lose the phone to the sink.

“Yikes, Big Brother!” Bethany laughs, and I don’t ask if she saw the same awful thing… mentally… but she gracefully moves on, “She’d make such a big deal out of it.”

“Completely overwhelming,” I dry my hands, “I didn’t even tell her when _I_ was sick. I had to communicate through text messaging only so she wouldn’t hear it in my voice.”

She laughs, “Okay, well… I’ll let you get back to him then. Soup?”

“Chicken noodle.”

“So. Fucking. Precious.”

I laugh, “I made the noodles.”

“Stop it! Ugh! Okay, hey…” her tone changes, “I wanted to talk about something, but, I’ll call back later.”

I peek out into the living room.

Fen is bundled up on the couch in full on cold and/or flu-mode.

He looks completely miserable despite having Bradley, the euphoric sickness-sponge, curled protectively over his quilt-covered legs.

Still, he’s falling asleep.

I smile.

“No, go ahead, Bethy” I say into the phone, quietly.

She exhales, “I’m thinking about this study abroad program that--”

“Do it,” I cut her off, “My biggest regret is that I didn’t do it when I could have.”

“Your _biggest_ regret?”

“Biggest _academic_ regret,” I offer, watching the soup simmer, “Seriously though. Where?”

“Italy. A year in Florence.”

“Do it, Bethy.”

“Yeah?” she’s excited, really excited, “What about Mom?”

“What about her? She’ll be onboard at ‘ _Florence.’_ ”

“You don’t think she’ll _hate_ having her precious baby girl halfway around the world?”

“Precious, huh! She’s still got me to fuss over locally,” I smirk, _me and the rest of them, her new children… Andy and Bela and Merrill who I swear spend just as much time with my mother as I do. She'd fuss over Fen if I let her... in a heartbeat, but I have established some boundaries that have, so far, held up_ , “And I guarantee you she’ll make a point of it to come to you.”

She laughs, “You’re totally right.”

“I know. When would you leave?”

“Early July.”

“Do it,” I stir, “Don’t even think about it. What about Seamus?”

“What about him?”

“Would you two…”

“Oh. Yeah. No, we’re… well I can’t say we broke up… because we weren’t really… he’s dating someone else right now.”

“A him-someone or a her-someone?”

“A him,” she says, sounding genuinely chipper, “He’s great. I like him a lot.”

I smile.

“Do it. Go to Italy. Paint and find yourself and fall in love with gorgeous Italians and all that _Eat Pray Love_ , _Tuscan Sky_ romantic bullshit that I didn’t do when I was young.”

“You’re still young!" she laughs, "Young-ish. Hey. Go on. Take care of Fen. I love you, Nurse Gare-Bear.”

“Oh, god, let’s _not_ make that a thing.”

She laughs, uproariously.

…

He has a drawer, here, in my dresser, but he hardly keeps anything in it.

I’ve given him some sweats and a t-shirt.

And between that and Bradley and the quilts and the tea and soup and the Tylenol… he claims to be feeling better.

He sounds terrible while claiming that though.

I put on _Fellowship of the Ring_ , the extended version, when he first got settled in there.

He’s stretched out on the couch, rubbing Bradley’s head and drowsily watching the beginning of _The Two Towers_.

Sitting in Dad’s chair, I can hear him breathing… and I pick up on enough of a rattle that I’m on alert.

I was sick so much as a kid.

Every fall. Through the winter…

I hated it.

I hate it now too… but all of sudden I’m sitting here and hating it more now that it’s him than a week ago when it was me lying there, where he is now.

“You want some Vicks?”

He glances over at me, away from Merry and Pippen, and asks flatly, “Do I want some what?”

“Vicks. It’s a rub,” I gesture towards my chest, “For your… breathing. And your cough. It’s, like, mentholated.”

He coughs, hard enough that Bradley lifts his head, and shrugs.

I grab the jar from the box of cold and flu stuff in the kitchen and come back to him.

I unscrew the lid and scoop out a glob.

He’s staring at me, looking a little sweaty around the edges.

“Do you want to…” I ask, with this glob of Vicks on my fingers.

“It’s a rub?”

The question makes me laugh… I don’t know why… but it does, “Yes! You’ve never used this?”

He blinks up at me, “No.”

“I was slathered in this from the age of three to fifteen,” I say, “Here.”

I sit on the edge of the couch, next to his hip, while Bradley licks my elbow, “On your chest.”

He’s settled against one of the pillows from my bed. His eyes close as my fingers make contact, hot skin under the loose-V of my v-neck t-shirt he’s wearing, and start rubbing the, uh, rub on.

He breathes in, and his nose wrinkles.

I smile, “So much better, right?”

“Remains to be seen,” he’s still really hoarse, but he's smirking.

“Here, uh,” I stop, and his eyes open. I offer the jar to him, “On your throat, too.”

He looks at me for a second, and then closes his eyes again, tilting his head back. He swallows. I watch him swallow.

 _I touch a lot of this man on a regular basis now._

 _A fact which nearly constantly fills me with an embarrassing amount of giddiness. Pervy, endorphin-high, loved-up, idiotic smile on my face, holding doors open for strangers giddiness._

 _But I do not touch Fen’s throat._

 _I’ve thought a lot of thoughts about Fen’s throat._

 _Why he doesn’t-- can’t let me touch it._

 _I’ve never asked and he’s never told me that story._

 _But there is a story._

 _I can kiss it. And I do._

 _Often._

 _Because I love the sound that he makes when I do._

 _I love all his sounds._

 _But… I mean… I have all these theories. The kinds of theories that have hard edges and crash around in your head when you’re falling asleep or taking a shower…_

 _Theories, very visual ones, about someone else, someone before me, hurting him--_

 _And I don’t ever want to do that._

 _I don’t want to do something that reminds him of…_

 _Hurt._

 _So I don’t touch his throat. I avoid it, instinctively._

 _But I do kiss it._

Now. I kiss him now. His skin is too hot against my lips but he makes that noise against my ear… the one that I love, thicker and rougher because he’s sick, and that makes me smile.

“Do you want me to?”

His eyes stay closed, “Maybe.”

I smile, and kiss his throat again.

“Maybe?”

He nods.

And swallows again, “Yeah.”

"Yeah, you want me to, or yeah maybe--"

"Hawke..." he smiles, "Yeah."

I scoop a little more Vicks with my fingers and start, lightly, on the side of his neck below his ear… far enough over that it’s more neck than throat.

Not the really sensitive, vulnerable part.

Not the tattooed part.

I make my way closer to center, hitting the first line of white ink.

And he moves fast, tilts his jaw down and away, turning away from me.

Fast. A reflex.

“Sorry,” he says, jaw tight.

“Hey, no…” I say lightly, offering him the jar, “don’t. It’s fine. Here.”

He scoops out a too-little glob and puts it on himself, his own fingers on his own throat.

I sit there with the jar in my hand.

 _Don’t be sorry, Fen._

I watch him.

“This is unnervingly sensual to me,” I say flatly, but honestly, as he rubs the last of the Vicks onto his neck. I realize I've still got Vicks on my fingers and rub the extra onto my own neck because a little extra Vicks never hurt anyone, right? "Is that weird?"

He laughs at that, and his jaw relaxes, “I’m not in the mood, Hawke.”

“Well, dammit,” I smile at him and screw the lid back on.

He coughs and laughs at the same time.

…

He makes it to the end of the first half of _The Two Towers_. Or, at any rate, that’s when I notice he’s fallen asleep, the side of his face pressed against the pillow.

I take his crooked glasses off and wake him up, “Come on. Bed.”

He nods, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. After a round of Tylenol, my fancy, very fast thermometer alerts me that his temperature is down and I make a much bigger deal out of that fact than he seems to care for.

Bradley hops down and jaunts towards bed, and Fen follows me, following Bradley.

After brushing his teeth, he crawls into bed and is asleep by the time I turn off the overhead light and check to make sure my alarm is set.

He’s asleep, and too warm next to me, on his back.

And snoring softly.

Fen never snores.

I bite my lip, smiling, and watch him.

And listen to him.

I whisper, with absolutely no intention of waking him up, “Hey, Fen?”

Nothing.

Just more soft snoring.

I sit there, next to him, and even though he can’t hear me I’m nervous.

All the things I want to say to him.

All the things that are true, that I want him to know…

 _I want to say--_

My heart’s beating fast.

“Thanks for letting me take care of you, Fen.”

He smiles, faintly, for a second.

“You’re cute when you snore.”

He grunts.

And I laugh.

And that wakes him up.

“Sorry,” I smooth his hair back as he blinks, turning his face towards me and quickly, easily falling back asleep.

He mumbles against me, with the great certainty that people falling asleep sometimes have, “Don’t ever be sorry, Hawke.”


	45. Chapter 45

_A man sits in front of me.  
In a chair. In a forest. Long blonde   
legs,   
folded under.  
Blonde hair, green leaves and red, gold upholstery.  
His eyes locked onto something behind me  
behind him.  
There is a boy sitting in front of me,  
where a man was,  
In a chair  
In a forest  
A boy with a different name.  
a different home  
a different heart  
than the man who slipped into a memory, still warm as wax  
on skin.  
I tore him apart, with my hands with my fingers with my tongue  
In the places that he lets himself come apart.  
Then I molded him back, fitting things together again, with my hands with my fingers,_

 _What’s one more scar?_

 _And whole again he tore  
me apart--_

“What are you reading?”

Fen cracks one green eye open.

“Smut.”

He’s on his back, awake, and he smiles.

And it’s one of those smiles that jumps right past a smirk.

Fen’s real smile is warm and full and unguarded, and happens in bed more often than anywhere else, and it's kind of absolutely my favorite thing.

“Er, poetic smut. It’s classy. Is the light keeping you up?” I tent Zev’s book across my chest.

He opens his other eye, stretching with a little grunt, arms over his head, “No.”

He came home tonight, from the wedding, and by that, by _home_ , I mean he had a cab drop him off here. At my apartment.

After a second he reaches tentatively for the book and I let him.

He holds it close to his face, nose literally buried, squinting to read the text without his glasses which are still on the nightstand.

He had felt better after letting me take care of him for a couple of days (and more soup, more Vicks and, as per his very carefully phrased request, a lot of fruit – he was so polite about asking me, but I was actually delighted to head out early and hit the Farmer’s Market with the express mission of buying as much fruit as I could for him – he ate all of it), but he was definitely still _sick_ when he left early on Friday morning.

But he came home, inside, and I kissed him and said, “Hey.”

His nose was cold against my cheek, but his mouth was warm.

Hot.

And before we ate dinner (store-bought ravioli) he got in the shower and I followed in after him.

I was a man with a mission.

I was feeling pent-up, hard and lonely after not being near him for days.

He looked so fucking perfect, standing there with his head bent forward, hands pressed into the curve of his lower back…

“Hey,” he looked up at me.

He stood with the water hitting his shoulders and I knelt in front of him, welcomed him back, kissing his stomach, his hips, the places that make him tight and loose, sucking his cock and swallowing around him, swallowing him, with his hands braced on my head and the cold tiles.

And god, the echoing sound of his voice, still thick in his chest and his throat from being travel-tired and sick, and that faint, soft accent saying my name when he got close, thrusting and saying _Hawke, god yes, fuck yes, godfuckgodyes_ , his fingers at the back of my skull, pulling at my wet hair just hard enough to hurt a little, to make me _moan_ , just before coming in my mouth, down my throat…

Oh, _fuck_. Perfect.

Fen.

I missed him.

“You taste _so_ good,” I kissed the inside of his thigh while he braced himself of the wall and panted over me, _I love your come, Fen_ , “ _Sweet._ ”

He smiled down at me. His eyelashes were wet and thick, and he blinked fast, blinking water from his eyes.

He’s so nearsighted. To see anything without his glasses on he has to squint – the TV, the alarm clock, his iphone when it rings in the middle of the night… always a wrong number from the 212 area code – and the squinting and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes drive me completely _mental_. Good mental.

Hot mental.

I have thus far stopped myself short of calling him Mr. Magoo. I… I’m fairly certain he would not appreciate that.

But I think it.

But close to each other like that, in the shower, it doesn’t matter.

He sees me.

I pushed wet hair out of my face and asked if he jerked off at all while he was gone.

I asked because when he came, he came _a lot_.

“Not that I’m complaining.”

He smirked, water dripping down his hair, down his neck, onto my face and kissed me, tongue deep in my mouth, tasting himself.

“No, I didn’t,” he growled, _he has so much more self control than me_ “Did you?”

I nodded. Because, _oh yeah._

 _Before falling asleep, I’d roll over and smell his sweat on the pillow next to me and--_

That’s how bad I’ve got it. A whiff of a sweaty pillow and I’m hard, and wanking like a lonely furtive teenager and thinking about skin, hands and sweat and white hair and _that smile_.

I stood up in the shower, facing him. He looked up at me, close, held on to me under the water, and smiled.

And proceeded then to masterfully jerk me off while telling me without any semblance of hesitation and with great specificity, what _exactly_ he missed doing to me while he was away.

It was only a few days.

A few nights.

But he missed doing _a lot_.

And when he tells me, holding my head in one hand and stroking my cock with the other, his mouth and that low dangerous edge in his voice against my ear, that he missed _spreading me open_ , my legs, my ass, missed _tasting_ me, _skin, sweat, need, come_ , missed feeling me shake under him, stretching around him, before that moment when my body _gives in_ , _gives over to him_ and I moan, always his name--

I came on his stomach and his chest, but hot water ran over his shoulder and washed it away.

I ran my hand over him, down his wet chest, across his ribs.

“I missed your skin,” I babbled, dazed and uncertain how I’m still standing.

He chuckled and coughed, breathing in steam. I had curled against the back of his body, arms around him.

Then dinner. And then shortly after, bed.

Too shortly.

But he was tired from being on the train. And being sick. And working a wedding that was, in his summation, pleasant by disorganized with a pasta buffet table and dry cake.

So while he slept, I sat up reading Zev’s book.

 _Which I’m now only capable of thinking of as friend-fiction._

 _I’ve been mentally inserting Andy into every poem that’s about a man… and Bela into every one about a woman…_

“Huh,” Fen says quietly, turning the page and then burying back in.

“Read it to me.”

He looks over the edge of the cover at me.

“Read to you?”

I grin and fold my hands together behind my head, _yes, please, because I missed your voice in my bed_ , “Yeah. If you would.”

“Hmm…” he eyes my body for a second, rolling closer and kissing me just above the armpit, pausing there to breathe in deeply, “You want me to read _this_ to you?”

“Yes,” I sigh, my breath in his messy hair.

He reaches back behind him for his glasses, twisting around.

I see him pause for just a second, body going tense for a second, like a twinge.

He grabs his glasses and slips them on.

“You okay?”

“My back…” he rumbles, dismissively, “sitting on a train all day.”

“Ahh.” I offer him the use of my heating pad.

He cracks open the book, giving me a withering look, and starts reading.

“ _A man sits in front of me.  
In a chair. In a forest. Long blonde   
legs,   
folded under.  
Blonde hair, green leaves and red, gold upholstery.  
His eyes locked onto something behind me  
behind him.  
There is a boy sitting in front of me,  
where a man was,  
In a chair  
In a forest  
A boy with a different name.  
a different home  
a different heart  
than the man who slipped into a memory, still warm as wax  
on skin.  
I tore him apart, with my hands with my fingers with my tongue  
In the places that he lets himself come apart.  
Then I molded him back, fitting things together again, with my hands with my fingers,_

 _What’s one more scar?_

 _And whole again he tore  
me apart  
hands, fingers, tongue, cock  
and a broken piece of himself that  
I didn’t fit back into place, putting him back together in a dark bed he’s never slept in before, that I’ll never sleep in again--_”

Eyes cast down at the book, I watch his lips, I watch his chest, bare and rising and falling with each breath.

He looks up at me.

“Fuck, I missed you Fen.”

He blinks and smiles crookedly.

And I kiss him.

“Hey.”

He pushes his head against mine, heavy and solid and then yawns, unable to hold it back.

“What do you want to do for your birthday?”

The yawn turns into a laugh, and then a groan, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?!”

He closes the book, laying back against the pillow a little gingerly, and scratches his head, “I… yeah.”

I flip through the pages fast a couple of times with my thumb, “Not even a dinner thing?”

He’s watching me carefully, “I don’t like to make a big deal out of it.”

“Have you _ever_ made a big deal out of it?”

I regret it immediately.

He looks away from me, a fast kind of flick of his eyes, to the corner of the room.

I feel that ache in my chest, that _Oh, god, I wish there was a way I could take that back,_ ache.

Hawkes obviously make a big deal out of birthdays.

He’s seen mine.

I told him all about Bela’s birthday over ravioli. The surprise party and the karaoke and, _oh my god_ , Merrill and the redheaded guy. (She’s got a thing for redheads, Merrill. Rumor has it that he kissed her hand... and much to her displeasure, nothing else. Sounds downright chivalrous to me, but, Merrill told me that it's been bloody long enough that she needs more kissed than just the back of her ruddy hand.)

And while I didn’t even remotely think Fen would want something like that (I couldn’t even begin to visualize a Fen surprise-karaoke-taco-Tuesday-on-Sunday-birthday party) I mean… I figured we’d do _something_.

Birthdays... it’s important.

 _My dad made a huge deal out of birthdays._

 _Always._

 _I don’t mention that right now, but I think about it. I think about Dad’s birthday and how we still celebrate it._

 _Always._

 _Because that’s what you do_.

I mumble, “Sorry, I--”

“No, I haven’t.”

He doesn’t look at me. Still.

“Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”

He smirks, “Whatever I want?”

“Yeah!”

He coughs into his fist and closes his eyes, “Even if I want to do nothing?”

I shrug, “Yeah. I guess. But maybe nothing with… like… a cupcake?”

He reaches for me, finding my hand on the book without opening his eyes,

“Let me think about it, Garrett.”

I watch him fall asleep, with his fingers against my wrist where my pulse beats.

"Whatever you want, Fen."


	46. Chapter 46

“Is it weird if I admit that I’m jealous of your ability to wear so many kinds of hats?”

Andy laughs, “No. And, okay, wait… are we talking about metaphorical hats or--”

“No, I mean.. hat. Hats on your head,” we’re killing time before the gallery opening and for whatever reason, he wanted to walk out to the end of the pier. It’s freezing. I’m freezing even though I’m bundled up to within an inch of my life.

Also, my hair has reach critical mass. I can’t do anything with it. While this doesn’t really matter day to day, it did matter, a lot, tonight as I was staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.

I’m Andy’s date for this thing. He knows the artist. Bela had a thing. But, she's meeting up with us after for drinks, as is Merrill (after her latest chaste-date with Gilly).

Andy said that Fen was more than welcome to join us, but Fen told me he wasn’t really interested.

He's _annoyed_ by installation art, apparently.

He’ll come out for drinks and get some work done in the meantime.

Andy warned me that we very likely will get out picture taken. It's that kind event. And the hair situation had only been solved by Fen handing me one of his beanies. It looks fine with what I’m wearing… but…

Andy looks fucking dapper.

And he’s wearing a newsie cap, a hat that I absolutely cannot wear.

Ever.

It would look ridiculous.

On Andy, it looks great. Of course it does.

“You can wear hats,” he says to me as we pass under a light on the pier.

“I really can’t. My head is too big. Hawkes have big heads.”

He thinks about this, breath fogging in front of his face, “Bethany does have a big head.”

“Don’t ever tell her,” I laugh.

“I won’t, I wont…” he looks at me, squinting, “You’re right though, I mean… I hadn’t ever really paid attention, but your head is… wow, yeah, very _very_ large--”

“Stop it,” I nudge him with my shoulder as we walk and it sends him off to the left, “You’ll make me self-conscious.”

“Aww,” he steps back in line next to me, “Here, try this on.”

He takes off his hat, shaking out his hair before the wind does it for him.

“Ugh. No. It’s… it’ll look like a novelty hat.”

He laughs again, “Oh come on, G.”

I sigh, and stop walking, squaring my hips and bracing myself for it, “Okay, fine.”

I take off Fen’s beanie and stuff it in my coat pocket before taking his hat and putting it on.

It barely fits around my huge skull.

“Christ, Garrett,” he’s pulling out his phone, and I just stand there while he takes a picture, with the flash on, because it’s easier than arguing. He looks at the screen, “Aww. It’s _kind of_ cute.”

I look. It’s not an awful picture, but it is very much a picture of me, with too long hair, wearing a tiny hat.

“All right, all right… happy?”

He fiddles around with his phone for a second, his face lit up by the screen, and then he slips it back into his pocket and takes back his hat.

I put Fen’s back on.

“I am, yeah.”

We walk to the end of the pier. The waves hitting the supports below us send vibrations up through the old weathered wood. I lean against the railing, looking out at a black sky and black water.

“When I was a kid, I was terrified of walking to the end of these. I always thought that a whale would come and like, knock the supports out,” I tell him, “…especially at night. I thought if I fell in, everything would be black. No one would ever find me.”

He’s quiet.

He doesn’t answer, he doesn’t say anything.

For a while.

And that’s… weird.

He’s close to me, but not leaning on the rail.

I look at his face.

“What’s up?”

“I, uh, I…” he shrugs, and scrunches up his face, “I took test.”

“A… like a… math test?”

“No, like a…” he says conversationally, “a medical test.”

“Oh.”

“I got the results back today. And, uh, apparently I’m sterile.”

I blink.

I blink again.

“Oh.”

“Or, not sterile… but…” he laughs, and looks at me, grinning crookedly, “pretty damn close to it.”

“Oh…” I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, so I look out at the black water and wait. Eventually, I say, articulately, “Are you… uh, we’re you… why did you…”

He laughs again, shifting his weight and patting the middle of my back before leaning in next to me, staring forward, “No! Uh… sorry, yeah… came out of nowhere, right? I… a medication that I was on a while ago, for my,” he pats his chest but I knew that he meant his _heart_ before he did that, “They, uh… well, they thought that maybe this medication might have affected, uh… that.”

Andy never talks about heart stuff, at all. I mean, he did once. Recently. At Bela’s birthday. He told me. It’s not something that really bothers him. He’s not… sick.

I hadn’t really thought about him going to doctors for it. Because he’s not sick.

But I guess with something like that, you stay not-sick by going to the doctor.

“Oh,” I stand up and put a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t seem particularly _upset_ , so… I don’t really know what to do, so I pat him and say, “Andy, I’m sorry about your sperm.”

He nods, chuckling, “Thank you.”

“Did you tell Bela?”

“Not yet,” he rubs his chin, “but I will. It’s not like…”

He doesn’t finish that sentence.

There’s a lot to that sentence. I get that.

We’re both quiet for a while.

I still have my hand on his shoulder because that seems like the right thing to do and he hasn’t tried to shake me off or anything.

“Do you…” we’re still both looking forward, “think about that?”

“Uh…” I shift, “Not too much. More in the last year. I think… Mom says it’s my biological clock.”

“Your mom is a wise-woman.”

“She wants fifty grandchildren. She’s told me that. Fifty.”

He leans into me, and I move my hand around to his other shoulder, pulling him in, “Fifty is a lot between three kids.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it," I kick the lowest rung on the railing lightly, "I… I don’t know. I’d…”

I don’t finish that sentence.

He puts his arm around my waist.

There’s a lot to that sentence. He gets that.

In my pocket my phone vibrates and I pull it out.

 **FROM: Fen.**

 **BODY:  
hat looks good.**

“You texted that to him?” I ask flatly.

“How could I not?” he laughs, pushing me off.

…

“How was it?” Isabela’s curled under Andy’s arm in the booth. We’re making our way through a pitcher of a micro-brew while waiting for Fen and Merrill.

I’m sitting across from them, “Uh… It was…” I look up, into the middle distance, thinking, “Andy, what would you say?”

“Uhh…” he takes a drink and sets down his glass, saying with certainty, “Vaginal.”

“Yeah,” I agree, “Yes. It was… very. Vaginal.”

Isabela’s eyebrows shoot up, “Oh yeah?”

I nod, fast, “All of it.”

“You should tell your mom,” she says, “She’ll love it.”

“Oh god…” I put my elbows on the table, “You’re totally right. She might buy something.”

Both of them laugh. Because I’m totally right. I can already see a six-foot vagina propped against the wall next to the china-hutch.

“Hey, kitten,” Isabela’s petting Andy’s stomach and he leans his head against her and I think that he looks really tired, unless it’s just the lighting, “It’s come to my attention that Valentine’s Day is just a couple of days away…”

I take a drink, “Oh really? What brought that to your attention?”

“Couldn’t possibly have been the decorations that Varric wanted us to put up, could it?” she rolls her eyes.

Bianca’s is… festive.

Really festive.

“Couldn’t possibly be, no.”

“What are you going to do?” she bats her eyelashes, “You have a Valentine, kitten.”

“Ugh. Don’t,” I shake my head, “It’s… I mean, yeah. Yes. I _do_. I… uh…”

And he walks in.

I see him before he sees me.

Other people see him too.

I mean… _Fen, especially Fen at night, Fen dressed like that, Fen…_

Fen looks good.

I’m not the only one who knows that.

But what’s crazy to me is that… he’s looking for me.

Not anybody else.

Just me.

He _sees_ me and starts walking over.

“We’re going to be low-key about it.”

“Low-key, huh?” she winks at me, "So, that means what? _Not_ pink fur-lined handcuffs?"

"Yeah," I sigh, "Exactly."

"Just regular handcuffs then?"

He slides in next to me.

 _Fuck, he smells good._

“Yeah,” I say to her, “Uh-huh.”

“Hey. How was it?” he asks, pouring himself a glass.

“Vaginal,” Andy and I say together.

He laughs at that, “Of course it was.”

We’re halfway through a second pitcher when Merrill walks in.

With Gilly behind her.

“Hey,” I tap the table, “look.”

Andy and Bela crane their necks to see. Bela pushes Andy out of the seat.

By the time Merrill and Gilly, who is smiling awkwardly and waving, are standing at the table, Andy and Bela are sitting on our side, Andy squished in against Fen leaving that whole side of the booth free for them to sit together.

Across from us.

“This is a funny arrangement,” Merrill says, tilting her head, “Have you been sitting like this all night?”

“For warmth,” Andy smiles up at her before digging an arm free to reach up and shake Gilly’s hand.

They sit.

Merrill says, pulling off her red coat, “I think it’s quite warm in here.”

Andy and Bela both shrug, innocently.

Merrill is adorable.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen _Date-Merrill_.

Her top is sparkly, and her eye makeup is smoky and she’s just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

And I look at Gilly, who is also adorable, and I don’t understand how she could think he’s _not_ interested.

He’s smitten.

Completely.

 _He’s also just got the bad luck to have a terminal case of being a gentleman._

 _To a fault, apparently._

I bite my lower lip after introductions are formally made and I stand up to get two more glasses and another pitcher.

When I come back, I slide back into my spot.

Fen’s hand finds my knee under the table.

“Hey,” I say quietly to him. I get an arched eyebrow in response.

“Where in North Carolina?” Gilly asks, and I realize he’s talking to Fen, because Fen answers.

“Monroe. I only lived there for a couple of months, before I moved to New York.”

“Oh,” Gilly nods, and smiles commiserating, “That’s a _big_ move.”

“Yeah,” Fen nods, and his fingers curl for just a second against the inside of my thigh. My breath hitches but I, astoundingly, don’t make a noise.

“Fen, I didn’t know you were from The South,” Merrill his her chin in her hands; such a light-weight, her cheeks are already flushed, “Gilly has an accent, I mean you all do, but his is,” she looks at him, at Gilly, and smiles, _she’s s totally smitten too_ , “distinct. But I don’t hear The South in you at all.”

“It’s there,” Fen shrugs.

“Can you do it?” Merrill asks, but Isabela is quick to second the request.

I watch him.

He’s… relaxed.

With his hand on the inside of my leg.

Which is making me…

The opposite of relaxed.

But, it’s nice. Seeing him like this. Wedged in between Andy and me and not… worried.

“What do you want me to say?”

I groan, but bite off the sound fast, coughing instead.

 _Oh, god._

He asks her this in a soft, charming, drawling accent that… okay, I’ll admit, that I’m programmed to _respond_ to because I’ve definitely heard this voice before… but… you know, only ever…

Only ever right before he comes.

 _Oh, god, Fen._

Across the table, Merrill is delighted, “Ooh… it’s so different from your accent,” she looks at Gilly, and then back a Fen, “Where?”

“Natchitoches, Louisiana,” which is more specific than anything I’ve ever heard about his childhood.

 _I haven’t… asked._

 _I mean… I’ve wanted to know, but I didn’t want to…_

 _Why haven’t I asked him?_

“It’s sexy, Fen,” Isabela says, grinning at him and then at me, “Andy speaks Polish.”

He nods, “I do.”

This, too, thrills Merrill, who asks Andy to showcase this skill.

With attention diverted to him, I press my head against Fen’s while he takes a drink, and I quietly say, a little jaggedly, “ _Christ_.”

And his hand, which is very, very warm against my leg, strokes up, slowly, stopping just shy of… me.

“What about you, Garrett?” Merrill asks me after hearing a little of Isabela’s French.

“Uh… I… uh…” I shrug, “My dad was English. I… can do that.”

“Go on, then,” she smiles at me, and leans into Gilly who looks momentarily surprised before boldly putting his arm around her shoulders.

“Uhh… I don’t know what to say…”

“Do you know any poems?” Fen asks me, smirking, and I laugh.

“Yeah. Uh… a sonnet.”

“Oh, God, Garrett,” Bela leans on the table and stares at me, “ _Please_ do a sonnet.”

So I do it. Giving the people what they want.

I recite Sonnet 127, from some deep memory-well, and I kind of… sound like Dad.

Vaguely.

“Not bad,” Merrill says when I’m done.

The group’s attention turns to where to go next, having had our fill of this bar, and while they’re talking, Fen’s hand moves just slightly further, and he turns toward my neck and sighs, “ _Christ, Hawke._ ”

And I smile.

Outside, in different lighting, I can see Andy’s face more clearly. He’s definitely tired, but he’s also the first one to say that he wants to go to another place, that he’s not ready to go home yet.

Isabela’s under his arm, holding onto his waist.

She glances at me, and gives me a little half smile.

I make a big deal out of crossing our little circle and hugging both of them, at the same time, while I announce that Old Man Hawke is too tired to stay out.

“Those vagina’s really took it out of me,” I say, letting them go.

He holds on to me for just a second longer, laughing sincerely.

“Vaginas?” Merrill blinks at me.

“I’ll tell you all about them at the next bar, Merrill,” Andy says, clapping me on the arm and taking a step backwards.

I shake hands with Gilly and hug Merrill, very quietly making her promise to tell me _everything_ later... to which she just laughs, and sighs, "Oh, I will..."

But I need to go home. I need to take Fen home with me.

 _Because I just hear his voice, in that accent, in my head and… I want him._

No.

I need him.

...

 

"God. You feel good. You…"

The force of his weight pushes me forward, my chest pressed against the mattress and I groan into my pillow, “You… oh, yeah-- deep, Fen. Talk, Fen. _Please._ Talk."

"So fucking tight, _fuck_ , Hawke..." one of his hands leaves my hips, holding my shoulder, pulling me back, leveraging, his palm sliding for just a second and half an inch across my slick skin, _I’m sweating so much, I think the heater is on and--_ “.. _wanted_ this, wanted _you._ ”

I only realize that I’m still wearing his beanie then, in that moment when he’s behind me, inside of me, and he reaches instinctively for my hair to pull my head back, and gets a handful of hat instead.

Which makes both of us laugh hard enough that we stop.

And I don’t think _anything’s_ ever felt as right as that moment, just after we both stop laughing where everything is really clear, and just… right – both of us naked, together, pushed forward on my arms and knees in my bed, with Fen deep inside, and still, his body curved over my back, one hand braced on the bed and the other against my stomach, feeling me breathe.

And he stays still.

He kisses my spine.

And then he’s still again.

Still until I start.

Until I drive back against him.

Until I make him moan.

He braces himself and lets me generate the movement, pushing back into him until he eventually starts pushing back, into me, meeting me. Every time.

I groan, his name, shifting my weight forward, back.

"More," he says, again, _again_.

I make him come like that.

And he’s still again until he pulls out.

He turns me over and sucks me off, swallows when I come, while I lay there coming and saying his name.

And I think, as I’m lying there after with his head against the inside of my thigh, that I want to say _I love you_.

I think I want to say it.

But I don’t.

And that moment slips by.

It just passes.

And nothing… happens.

But as I’m lying there in the dark, in my bed, with him… I can’t fall asleep.

I don’t know why.

I stay awake.

When he crawls up next to me, lying on his back after dropping the condom into my trashcan, I stay awake.

 _I should have said it._

 _I still could._

But I don’t.

I say, "Andy's sterile."

Fen looks up at me in the dark, with his hair soft and everywhere, messy from having my hands buried in it. He frowns and says, "Oh."

I tell him everything. I tell him about the medication and Andy's heart.

And... I tell him that I don't think I was supposed to tell him.

"I won't tell him," he says with his hand on my chest, "You're... worried."

I shrug, adjust my head on the pillow, "Yeah, I guess."

"About Andy?"

"Yeah," I am... but... I'm worried about something else too... and I'd tell him what it is if I knew. But I don't know.

He rolls over, holding my face between both of his hands and kissing me, firmly, enough to refocus my attention.

His mouth tastes like me, and--

"It'll be okay," he says, softly, and I almost feel like he's saying it to himself too.

I just... hear that.

I fall asleep eventually, I don’t know when, but when I do, I dream about a six-foot vagina wearing a very small hat.

Then I dream about Fen.

And then I dream about a city I’ve never been to.

I dream about New York.


	47. Chapter 47

On the morning on February 14th, I wake up alone.

Which is strange.

I definitely _hadn’t_ gone to bed alone, between Bradley lying on my feet and Fen curled against my back.

So when I wake up and find both of them lying on the hardwood floor _next_ to the bed, my mostly-asleep brain has a hard time processing this new arrangement.

“Hey, Fen?” I say, my chin on the edge of the mattress.

He opens his eyes and looked up at me.

“Happy birthday?”

To which he replies, like this is completely normal, “Garrett, I… fractured two of my vertebrae.”

I, naturally, freak completely the fuck out, fumbling my way out of bed, “What-- now?!”

He laughs, softly.

“No… years ago. I…” he calmly scratches Bradley’s head where it’s resting on his stomach and says, “I’ve got a _scar_.”

He says it with a little eyebrow quirk, like, _Haven’t you ever wondered about that?_

But I hadn’t ever noticed it.

Because of the ink. It’s under one of the lines. On his back. Covered by one of the thickest white lines on his body.

And because the ink is raised…

 _I mean… they all feel like scars._

He’s lying on the floor because it’s more comfortable to be flat and my mattress is too soft.

He’s assures me that he’s not incapacitated.

But the way that he moves when he finally does get up… he _is_ in pain.

Once he’s up, he shows me in the morning light, standing next to the window, and I see it.

 _I had never noticed._

 _Never._

 _It was under the ink, so, even with my fingers…_

It’s right there, obvious. A precise surgical line that’s definitely, distinctly, not as artistic as the rest of the lines on his body. Neat, but with that faint tree-root unevenness that all long straight scars have.

 _I’ve touched this spot a hundred of time._

It’s _the_ spot. In the curve of the small of his back.

When I touch him there, it’s like… I feel him snap around that spot. Like an electric current.

“I touch… I mean, I have,” I’m kneeling behind him, looking up at his back, “A lot. Does it hurt? I… if it does I--”

He looks over his shoulder at me and that shuts me up. I can hear him thinking… “It doesn’t hurt. When you…” he blinks slowly, “It feels good.”

“Yeah?”

I brush the line with my fingertip and he shudders.

“Yeah.”

But the shudder passes and then he’s walking stiffly towards the kitchen.

Bradley seems to get that something’s not right. He won’t leave Fen. He goes with him to the kitchen, and I follow both of them.

“You…” Fen stops, leaning against the wall and looking at the kitchen counter.

“I just did some shopping,” I shrug, "not a big deal, or anything."

It’s a lot of fruit.

Fen loves fruit.

I got it for him.

I got all the fruit he loves.

He’s standing there, er, leaning there, and there’s something tight around his eyes even though he’s smiling.

 _Pain._ I think it’s pain.

I make coffee, offer him the last Percocet from my wisdom tooth which he declines, and then start making breakfast, first cutting up fruit and he tucks into that sitting at my table.

Until he can’t sit anymore.

When I turn around, he’s back on the ground, again with Bradley protectively spooned up against him.

I turn off the burner and come over to him.

He has his eyes closed.

“Okay, so…” I sit down next to him, “what do we need to do here?”

“ _‘We?’_ ” he smiles, eyes closed.

“Yeah, afraid so.”

I have the heater turned up high and the apartment is comfortable warm. He’s not bothered putting on a shirt after showing me the scar, and I watch his chest rise and fall now as he breathes deeply, evenly.

“How did you break your back?”

“Fractured my vertebrae,” he corrects me and opens his eyes.

I’m worried. I’m doing my best not to show it.

But my best isn’t very good.

With a grunt, he parts his hair, at that scar, “When I got this. It happened then.”

I swallow, “That was a hell of a fight.”

“Hmm.”

He doesn’t remember what started it. It doesn’t matter. They left him there. Someone else found him. Someone called 9-1-1. He lost consciousness. He doesn’t really remember much about it.

Except waking up in the hospital.

And being strapped down.

“Strapped in place,” he corrects himself. “Can I have my coffee?”

I blink at him a few times, trying not to visualize _everything_ , and I stand up, “Yeah.”

I come back with his mug and he’s still on his back.

“You want a straw or something?”

He smiles.

“I’ll sit up,” but he doesn’t, “I have…” he closes his eyes again, “Two plates and five screws. In my lower back.”

“ _You do?_ ”

“Yeah.”

I sip his coffee because it’s still in my hands, _focus, Garrett,_ “Okay, so… you have a doctor? Like, a back guy?”

“I haven’t been in years. I don’t…” he shrugs, kind of, a shrug lying down.

But he _has_ insurance.

He tells me that.

And after a few more minutes of lying there, with me nervously drinking his coffee next to him, he tells me quietly that he thinks maybe he needs to find a doctor.

So I know he’s really feeling like shit.

…

I think about calling Mom.

But for whatever reason, I call Varric instead.

He’s surprised when I call him. Which seems fair. It’s random. Out of nowhere.

Regardless, it’s good I did. Varric happens to know the _best_ orthopedic guy in Kirkwall.

Well, he’s actually just outside of Kirkwall. He works Fen in that day.

 _Varric is magical._

I drive out to the clinic with a printed out Google Map in my lap and Fen lying across my backseat. He's very quiet the whole way.

And we end up here, by late afternoon; sitting in this doctor’s faintly lavender office, staring at a freshly done scan of Fen’s augmented lower back.

The scan is strange. I can’t stop staring at it.

His body looks so much smaller, on the screen, so narrow in this ghostly image of skin, bone, _metal_.

He doesn’t seem that small to me.

I stare at the little screen until my vision blurs.

He’s quiet.

He’s also a little high.

The friendly staff gave him something for the pain, something ending in _–odone_ , and a Valium. When the nurse, who had clearly seen all his paperwork, gave him the Valium, he said, “Happy Birthday, Leto,” and Fen smiled at him, politely, before grimacing at me behind his back. I smiled, but it was jarring – Leto; I forget that legally, that’s still his name.

When the doctor comes in and tells us that it’s physical therapy now or surgery later, Fen just nods, and says, “Yeah. Okay.”

Just like that.

I take all the paper work. I listen to all the information, the recommendations, the things he shouldn’t be doing (a lot of which he’s apparently already doing) to avoid straining it and making it worse.

He’s unfocused, tired, drugged and he just agrees, says okay to everything.

He should have been getting it looked at on a regular, annual basis.

He wasn’t doing that. I want to ask him why, but this isn’t the time.

He’s obliging the whole time we’re in the office, but as soon as we’re back in the car, he starts grumbling about physical therapy, and swearing quietly, staring out the window.

“Okay, yeah…” I say, pulling out of the parking lot, “but… you did get a very spiffy new back brace... thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

It's like a cloth, wrap, structured thing. He doesn’t have to wear it all the time. There’s a schedule.

And he is wearing it now.

“Stylish.”

“Right.”

“Not girdle-like at all.”

Which makes him laugh, just once, before leaning his chin on his hand, elbow on the door.

It starts to get dark after making a pit stop at the pharmacy and I ask him what he wants for dinner as I’m driving.

He shrugs, looking at the various items we’ve picked up, shaking pill bottles trying to read labels in passing bursts of street lamp lighting.

“Lowtown Deli it is then,” I say.

I buy him a meatball sandwich and get the same for myself, and chips, and a chocolate muffin.

We eat outside under a heater, because while I just want to get him home, eating a meatball sandwich in the car sounds like a disastrously bad idea, and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.

He starts talking.

He tells me about Dan at the hospital.

That’s where they met.

Fen had been there long enough that he was up and walking. They were discharging him soon.

He went outside to smoke. Looking for someone who could give him a cigarette. He smoked every day then, and it had been a long time.

And he found Dan.

They smoked.

The staff had shaved part of his head, along the part of his skull they had _fixed_.

That’s what they talked about, his hair.

He had nowhere to go after the hospital sent him away.

And the bills--

“He offered,” he says, licking marinara from his hand, “Money was never an issue for him. His family had money. He had money. He offered. I accepted.”

I watch him.

“And he offered me a place to stay. And I accepted.”

It’s a dry story, or anyway, he tells it dryly.

I swallow, setting down my sandwich, “Why was he at the hospital?”

“Visiting an aunt,” he says, looking up at me, “She died.”

I tear the chocolate muffin in half, and give him the bigger half.

He smiles.

I blink, trying to push down a lot of the things I’m feeling that I can’t or don’t want to name, “Happy Birthday, Fen.”

He smiles crookedly, “All in all, not the _worst_ I’ve had. Good drugs,” he takes a bite of the muffin and tilts his head and adding softly, honestly, “good company.”

I lean over, brushing muffin from the corner of his mouth.

“If this isn’t so bad, you’ve had some really shit birthdays, Fen.”

He shrugs, kissing my thumb, “I’m not going to disagree with you on that point.”

…

He goes to physical therapy.

I drive him when I can, or he takes the bus. When I go, I don’t go in… he doesn’t want me to. His physical therapy remains a mystery to me. I bring Bradley with me and we hang out by the little man-made lake chasing ducks (okay, he chases ducks while I watch from a bench) until it’s time to come back for Fen who has always changed out of whatever he wears for physical therapy and back into his regular clothes.

He hates it.

He hates that everyone else is old.

He hates what they make him do.

He’s in good shape.

He’s not weak. He’s not sick or dying or old.

And he hates that sometimes he can’t do what they want him to do.

He only tells me that once.

I ask him, during one quiet drive back, why he wasn’t getting it looked at every year.

He didn’t answer me for a long time.

“It was fine," he said finally, "And I didn’t want to think about it anymore.”

He didn’t say anything else until we got back to his apartment.

…

I walk up to the big glass front doors where he waits for me.

Usually, he looks miserable after a session. But not today.

Nope.

Fen’s smirking.

“Hey,” I kiss his temple, and lean back, “what’s the deal?”

He scratches Bradley’s sides and stands up again (one thing I will say for the physical therapy, his posture is already better… like… noticeably) saying, “I’ll tell you in the car.”

And he does.

“Gilly.”

“Excuse me?”

He’s smiling, looking ahead, “Gilly. Roland Gilmore was my physical therapist today.”

“Was he??”

He nods, “He was better than the other guy.”

“Huh…” I look at him, stopped at a light, “I thought he lived--”

“He very recently relocated,” he says, barely holding back a smirk, “he now works, and lives, here. In Kirkwall.”

“Why would he--” I stop myself, _for Merrill_ , “Oh well that’s fucking _cute_!”

…

I ask Merrill about Gilly the next morning at work.

I’m leaning against the counter by Dana (today we’re looking at Judy Chicago’s _Dinner Party_ … and I’m going to be honest, it’s a little early for that many symbolic vulvas) and I ask her how things are going.

“Oh, well…” Merrill shrugs, “I mean… I told you that we…” she looks at Dana, who is holding her face, elbows on the countertop, “That, we… finally… uh…” I watch Merrill try to come up with a euphemism; it’s a fascinating process, “That we haven’t, ah, painted the dining room yet… but, we have, uh… put down a dropcloth.”

“Uh-huh.”

“To protect the carpet.”

Wildly confusing.

“But, uh… you know,” she smooths her apron, fussily, “it’s hard with the distance. Living in different cities. Especially because he doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping over,” she looks at Dana, who is barely not giggling, “On my couch. In my living room. While I’m in my bedroom. With the door locked. What are you looking at?”

She tries to change the subject, squeezing in front of me and looking at Dana’s book.

“Oh. Well. Those are, clearly, just regular dinner plates.”

“What is it that Gilly does?” I ask.

“Physical therapy,” she answers, “Oh. Maybe he… would you want him to talk to Fen? I know you said he’s been having a hard go of it.”

Merrill doesn’t always _get_ personal space.

“Merrill, he physically therapized Fen.”

“I don’t…” she frowns up at me, looking slightly offended, “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“He… works at the clinic.”

“He what?”

“He…” I look past her, seeing Andy walk in, heading to his table, “He lives here now. He worked with Fen. On Fen. He… told Fen that he _just_ moved here.”

She blushes, smiling, and pats the center of my chest, leaving a little powdered sugar from her hand on my apron, “Well! I mean… we’d talked, a bit about that, but he wasn’t…”

“Should make sleeping arrangements easier,” Dana says, innocently, “right?”

“Yes! Yes it should! Andy!”

Andy looks up, over his MacBook.

“What can I get started for you?”

She pushes away from me, bouncing over to him.

“Uh… just a… coffee.”

“Any food? You look hungry? I’ll make you something. My treat.”

“Uhh…” he looks at me, “Okay. Like a… ham and cheese sandwich?”

“On a croissant!” Merrill, beaming, gets to work on that.

While she’s working, humming to herself, I go over to Andy and sit at his table.

I fill him in.

“Ahh…” he smiles behind folded hands, “Good boy, Gilly.”

“That’s what I was thinking…” I look at him out of the corner of my eye. Andy looks tired. I know he’s just started preliminary work on the next _Justice & Vengeance_, fairly unenthusiastically, but I suspect it’s something else.

“How are you?”

He opens up a document, “Uh… little hungry.”

I pat his thigh under the table, and stand up.

He hasn’t talked to me about it again.

But since that night on the pier, he’s been… quieter.

We've been hanging out more, just the two of us. We have a standing date on Tuesday nights where he comes over for pizza and beer. I keep thinking maybe he’ll open up about it again. He doesn't. Hasn't.

Maybe he doesn’t need to.

Maybe I’m just fussing.

I did get the fussing-gene from my mother’s side.

“Wanna go see a really depressing documentary with me tonight?” I ask him.

“What about?”

“A murder, or something, I don’t know. I hear it’s good.”

He laughs, “Sure. Yeah. Fen coming?”

“Maybe.”

He grins, “How’s he doing?”

I think about that before answering.

Physically, he’s doing better. He doesn’t take the pain medication they gave him… even sometimes when I think he probably should, and sleep is tough sometimes – I’ve woken up to him pacing the room in the dark wearing his brace a couple of times. He’s frustrated, I know, and it hurts…

“He’s… all right.”

“Well, he’s got you,” he says.

“You’ve got me, too.”

He nods, pulling his hair into an elastic at the back of his head.

“I’m a Hawke… it’s in my genetic code to try to fix everyone else’s problems. I need to.”

“What time is this depressing thing happening tonight?”

“7:00.”

“Drinks after?”

“Most definitely.”

Merrill brings him food.

Fen comes in at 9:05; Merrill hugs him.

“Ooh! Sorry!” she says after colliding with him, “Did I hurt you?”

He shakes his head, “I’m fine.”

“Oh, good,” she holds on to him.

I put my hand over my heart and grin at him when he sees me.

He, awkwardly, pats her back until she lets him go.

Then she gives him his coffee.

She drew a heart on the sleeve.

I follow him out, standing in the cold of a quiet March morning, and when he kisses me, I feel him smile against my lips.

…

Mom has us over for a Good Luck / Bon Voyage party the night before we fly to New York.

It’s silly.

It’s not that far of a _voyage_.

I walked over to the Supercuts and got a haircut (it needed to happen) and, while Varric agreed to let me keep the beard this time, it’s been trimmed.

Mom made salmon burgers and pie. _Heaven._

As the first wave of dishes is being tackled by Merrill and Fen, Mom grabs me by the arm, “Sweetheart, come with me.”

So I do.

I follow her to her room.

To her closet.

She pulls the cord and pulls the light on.

And takes Dad’s bomber jacket off of its hanger.

“Mom.”

“I want you to have it,” she smells it… even though after this long it doesn’t smell like him… just leather.

“I…” I take it from her, “why?”

She shrugs, “You know… I was just thinking about it… and I just think it’s time. It’s such a nice jacket,” she pets the worn fur lining, “someone should wear it. I’d look ridiculous in it.”

I pull it on, feeling my chest tighten, “Like a suburban Amelia Earhart?”

“Exactly,” she says quietly, zipping me in, like a little kid, “after spending a few years in The Bermuda Triangle.”

“What are you talking about?” I put my hands in the pockets, “You look great.”

“You’re a sweet liar to say so,” she adjusts the collar.

I want to cry.

But it feels _good._

Something’s in the pocket, something cold.

I pull it out.

A silver chain, with a little silver shield pendant.

“Oh my god,” she says, opening her hand up.

I let it fall into her hand.

“That isn’t,” I breathe out, “what I think it is?”

She doesn’t say anything, but nods, lips pressed together.

“I thought he’d lost it.”

She shrugs. Again, not saying anything.

I remember it. He wore it every day. He said it kept him safe.

When he died… we thought it was gone.

I thought that one of the EMT’s had taken it.

I freaked out. I needed to freak out over something that maybe I could fix. Mom calmed me down. Or tried to. Retroactively, I’ve always thought that she needed someone to calm down.

It was hers. Her family crest, no bigger than his, _and now my_ , thumbnail.

She gave it to them when they got married. My parents never had wedding rings. But she gave him this.

It kept him safe.

“Garrett,” she says, her voice thick, “here.”

She’s unclasped it, coming towards my neck.

“Whoa, wait,” I shake my head, but she doesn’t stop, closing it around my throat, “It’s yours.”

“Nope. Hasn’t been mine for a long time.”

I lift it by the chain, letting it fall inside my shirt, against my chest.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

I feel a lot of things. My heart feels tight, fast.

All of it. Old things.

A few new ones. Some of them hurt.

But I do feel safer with it on.

I blurt out, from god knows where, “Mom, Andy has a problem.”

She blinks, surprised, “Andy?”

He’s downstairs, with everyone else.

“Can you…”

She nods, pulling me in before I start crying, “I’ll talk to him. What kind of problem, sweetheart?”

I squeeze her, tight enough that she makes a little wheezing squeak, “He needs a mom.”

…

Sitting in the living room, it’s decided, unanimously, that we all need coffee. I start to stand up, but Mom is up faster, pushing me down, “No way. You’re a professional and a competitor. You sit. Andy, sweetheart, give me a hand?”

He looks up at her, surprised, and stretches, leaving his spot between Bela and Merrill and following Mom.

I’m on the loveseat next to Fen.

“So…” Gilly, looking overly proper in Mom's living room with a large stuffed uterus next to him, says to Fen, “When you’re on the plane, uh, make sure to get up, stretch out… like, what we’ve been… you know.”

Fen nods, adjusting himself on the loveseat, his arm on the back behind me, and say patiently, “Yeah.”

“You too, Garrett,” he looks at me, “You know… for circulation.”

“How are you on planes, Garrett?” Merrill asks me, “I feel like you’d be… twitchy.”

Fen laughs.

“I’m… not twitchy.”

“You’re always twitchy, kitten,” Isabela says, looking at Fen, “good luck with that.”

“Thanks.”

“What are you going to do in New York?” Gilly asks, looking back and forth between both of us, “Other than the competition. You lived there, right?”

Fen nods, his fingers finding the freshly cut nape of my neck and I can’t help it, I close my eyes.

 _Feels so good._

“Yeah. I did.”

We talk about touristy things that we might, but probably won’t, do.

The competition is in the hotel where we’re staying. It happens the third day we’re there, all day. Apart from that, we haven’t really made plans.

Which now, the night before leaving, seems like a mistake.

“What’s taking them so long?” Bela asks, and eyebrow arched.

“I…” I get up, a little too quickly, “let me…”

I step into the kitchen, and then quickly back-step out.

Mom sees me, but Andy doesn’t.

He’s facing away, holding onto her, and I don’t know if he’s crying… I don’t think he is, but he’s holding onto her, his chin on her shoulder.

She’s rubbing his back in circles, like I remember her doing for Carver when he’d come down from a tantrum.

She winks at me and I go back out.

 _Good._

 _That’s good for him._

I feel the little shield under my shirt.

I press it against my chest with my fingertips.

 _It feels right._

“…it’s just,” I hear Andy, softly, “…it’s just done. Like, here’s this…” he clears his throat, “part of you that won’t get better. It’s done.”

He laughs, thick, and pulls in a deep, loud breath.

“Sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” she makes a mom clucking sound, “Have you… talked to Bela?”

“She knows. She’s been great. I’m… I mean, we… I just…” he exhales unevenly, “I don't get to make that choice... Fuck, I didn’t even _want_ kids, Leandra.”

“Why would you? They’re _horrible_. They suck the life out of you. Parasites. Leeches.”

He laughs.

And then I hear him cry.

Just once.

I shouldn’t be standing here, listening… but I’m, I mean, if anyone else came through I’d redirect them. I’m guarding the kitchen. For Andy.

“This fucking body,” he says, sounding tired. Bitter.

“No _body_ is perfect,” she says, and when he groans at her pun, he apologizes softly, “sorry, had to be done.”

“Kitten,” I turn to see Isabela walking towards me, “why are you just standing there?”

“I, uh…” I’ve got nothing, “I was uh…”

“Looking for a filter,” Andy says, sounding congested, “we found one, G.”

Isabela side-eyes me walking past me into the kitchen, where Mom and Andy are both making excessive noise moving mugs and things around.

I follow her in.

His eyes are red.

“It’s, uh…” he holds up the mug in his hand, a Michael Jackson memorial mug that Carver thoughtfully gave Mom for mother’s day, “It just really hit me that he’s _gone,_ ” he says with a pathetic little half smile.

Isabela hugs him tightly.

Mom takes the mug from his hand and busies herself with pouring the finished coffee. I start getting cream and sugar ready, making quick eye contact with Mom.

Andy wraps his arms around Bela.

“I know how much you like Thriller, Tiger,” Bela says.

“So much.”

I laugh.

And Mom scratches my back.

“He _was_ very talented,” Mom says, “A hot mess, but so very talented.”

…

I pull off my t-shirt and drop it next to the hamper.

Fen looks at my chest, at the little Amell shield, questioning.

“It was Dad’s,” I say.

He comes closer to me, looking at it. I tell him about it.

I tell him about Dad.

I feel the warmth of his body, his breath.

I tell him about that day. That night.

I don’t cry. At all.

I just… talk.

Our flight is early, and I left Bradley at Mom’s… she’s watching him while I’m gone. The room feels very still.

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

He pulls off his own shirt, folding it and setting it on top of his bag.

I watch him.

“I, um…”

I can’t say it.

I want to.

 _What if we die in a plane crash and I never said it?_

 _That’s morbid, Garrett._

His eyebrows shoot up, and he pulls me in, kissing me, “Yes?”

“How’s your back?”

He pulls back, taking off his glasses, “Fine. I guess.”

“Good,” I nod, “That’s… good.”

He smiles, tucking hair behind his ears.

 _I love his ears._

“Fen. I love pie.”

He laughs, “I know you do.”

“I love pie. A lot. More than…” I blink fast, “More than any other... dessert.”

He nods, still grinning. A warm hand slides from my side to my back.

And his chest is pressed against me, warm and smooth.

He pats the side of my belly softly, “You eat a lot of pie, Hawke.”

“That’s… the thing about me and pie. I’ll never get sick of it.”

He kisses me, holding my face in his hands.

“Never is a long time, Hawke.”

“I'm... not sure about a lot of things in this life, but," I kiss him, softly, "I've never been as certain about anything as I am about pie."…


	48. Chapter 48

I see it before he does.

Maybe… I don’t know… maybe he wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t drawn attention to it. If I hadn’t just had this knee-jerk reaction.

 _But how could I not?_

 _It’s him. His face._

 _My favorite face._

“This is you.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I can feel time slowing down.

I watch him blink, slowly, with a kind of… god, I don’t even know. _Resignation_. Something like defeat…

He turns, looking over his shoulder. I don’t see his face when he sees it.

 _His face._

A photograph. Of him. When he was still a stranger to me. In black and white. Black hair. White ink.

 _And his eyes, christ, his eyes burn--_

A flyer, printed on glossy cardstock.

His face under text.

Under _Little Wolf._

A location. _A gallery_.

A date.

An artist.

An exhibition.

 _Little Wolf._

And we both just stand there at the counter of this painfully hip coffee shop a few blocks from the hotel. We checked-in. We dropped off bags and changed and came here. For coffee.

There’s a stack of these cards, next to the register.

He’s still.

He’s so still that if I didn’t know better, if I didn’t sleep next to him every night… if I didn’t--

I might mistake it for calm.

But he is _not_ calm.

The barista has his coffee and her voice snaps him out of stillness. And time speeds up.

Too fast. I can’t catch up. I can’t breathe.

He looks at her, takes the cup and picks up one of the cards with tattooed fingers that match too perfectly the marked chin in that picture.

That picture of him.

“That’s… you.”

I say it again, quietly. To myself. To try to make sense out of… something.

He’s holding it but not looking at it.

 _Little Wolf._

“Fen.”

He looks at me, over his shoulder…

And his eyes are the eyes in the picture, on the card.

Eyes that I know… and that at the same time…

Eyes that burn and don’t know me.

“Hey,” I step closer to him, “What--”

“It’s Dan. It’s Dan’s…” every line in his body is rigid, ready to run… or fight, but his voice is soft, quiet, controlled, “It’s Dan’s _exhibition._ ”

I shake my head, feel like I’m still coming up from really deep water too fast, _too fast… and my joints are all…_ “I don’t…”

The card is in his hand.

“It’s me,” his voice comes out low, thick… I can barely hear him over the whirr of a coffee grinder, the other voices in the shop, over the air between us.

There is stack of cards on the counter still, and I look past him at the top one… I know that it’s him. I know… but…

The girl hands me my coffee. I pay.

She looks at him, and then back at me, and then at the next customer behind us.

“Little Wolf…” his teeth are clenched, “It’s me.”

Once we’re outside he shakes his head and goes past me, walking quickly with his head down, he doesn’t have to look where he’s going… he knows.

He remembers.

 _It’s like he never left._

And I realize that in one, awful moment.

He’s ready to fight or run.

 _Run._

I follow him.

…

In the hotel room, he paces, pulling off his coat like it burns.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he breathes out, throwing the coat down and fisting both hands into his hair, “What the _fuck_ was I thinking?”

“I’m sorry.”

I don’t think he hears me at first, he doesn’t respond, doesn’t stop moving… and even standing on the other side of the big room from him, I can feel heat and something _else_ radiating off of him.

“It was my choice,” he growls it out under his breath.

I pick up the card off the floor where he dropped it and smooth it out, running my thumb over the picture of his face twice.

 _Little Wolf._

 _An exhibition by Dan A._

 _Pretentious son of a bitch… no last name, no--_

It opened two days ago.

“Did you… you didn’t _know_ about this?”

I only notice that something’s wrong… er, wronger after it’s too late.

Fen’s stopped moving.

I look up at him, all the blood in my body going ice cold.

His weight is shifted to one leg, one hip, shoulders back…

“You think I _knew_?”

 _He ran earlier…_

 _This is all fight._

“No.”

He cocks his head, eyes hard, hot.

“Really?” he swallows, and laughs… hard, “He recorded everything. From day fucking one. That’s… everything. I didn’t think--”

“I don’t--” I shake my head, dumbly, “How… legally… how can he--”

“I was his _project_ ,” he scratches fingers hard against his scalp, “That’s why he was willing to… all my medical bills, the surgery… my back… he… what was I going to do? I signed what he wanted. Why wouldn’t I? This kid with no money… with a cracked skull and a broken back and _nothing--_ ”

I can’t.

I can’t.

That hurts. In my chest. That tears something.

 _You had me, you just didn’t have me yet and I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry--_

He moves again, but this time it’s slow… stalking, eyes never leaving my face but hardly looking at me.

“The fucked up thing is that he kept me alive,” he laughs, “he gave me a place to live, to sleep… and all he asked in exchange was me. Someone wanted…”

He goes still.

Lost.

Not looking at anything.

He picks up the bottle of wine that was here when we arrived. Courtesy of Varric. I watch him open it. Ritual. Something familiar. Something that his hands know how to do.

“There were times that… just, knowing that someone wanted me enough to pay for me… it meant enough to keep going, to keep _fucking_ , to keep…” he opens the bottle without any apparent conscious effort, “ _Little Wolf_.”

He drinks from the bottle, deep and long.

I stare at the card, _Little Wolf_ , bent in my hand.

I don’t understand. I… there’s so much.

Too much.

And I don’t know--

I’m shaking.

“How did you not _know_?”

I look up at him.

I hear myself.

 _My parents never fought._

 _Except once. That I know of._

 _They fought in the kitchen, at the old house, and I heard them, heard_

 _Dad’s voice._

 _It was the only time he ever sounded like that. This._

 _The way I sound now._

“I haven’t spent a lot of time obsessing over what he does, Garrett.”

“It’s an exhibition of you, Fen,” I drop it onto the bed, between us, “You didn’t…” I shrug, and I’m mad, at him, but not at him, “how?”

He scoffs, rubbing a thumb against his bottom lip, the lines on his chin, looking away from me at the wall, and then back, “You _think_ \--”

“Was he the one calling you?”

It hangs there.

And he doesn’t answer, just shifts his weight.

“Late at night? 212? Was it him?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

Oh.

We’re doing _this_.

Something clicks, hard, metallic.

“There’s…” my eyes are hot and I can’t keep them open but I don’t want to look away because then I’m weak and I don’t want to be weak now, “there’s a lot of shit you don’t tell me, Fen, until you _have_ to. Until there’s no getting around it. A lot of fucking shit.”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Really??” my voice cracks, “Really? _I_ don’t need to know--”

“It’s _my_ fucking past, Garrett, it’s over--”

“It is. Yeah. You’re right. Clearly fucking finished business,” I snatch the card up again, wadding it in my hand.

He stares at it, in my hand, breathing fast, shallow.

I am too.

“I didn’t know.”

I don’t want to fight with him. He’s the last person in the world I want to fight with.

I hate this feeling.

I hate everything.

I hate adrenaline.

I hate that a part of me wants to walk out.

I hate that part of me wants to slam him into a wall.

The part of me that wants him to fuck me, because that makes sense, that’s what we do.

We don’t do this.

I hate the part of me that wants to fuck him.

Because we don’t do that either.

Because of this. This. Dan. Little Wolf.

Maybe. Maybe that’s why we don’t.

I don’t know for sure.

I don’t know.

I hate that I don’t know.

I hate that I can’t fix this, easy, and that I know we’re past the point of saying I’m sorry.

I hate that something broke between this morning and now, between the airport and here.

I hate the cracked edge in his voice, that asks with finality, “You want to?”

And I hate that before I answer and say, “No,” that I do want to, that I want to say _yeah_ , I want to.

And I hate that he sees the lie in _No_.

He shrugs, “Then go.”

“Wh--”

“I…” he staggers back, his back curved, “you’ll never get another chance like this, right? It’s all there. Everything,” he looks at me, jaw set hard, “all my precious _fucking shit_ that I won’t tell you about.”

I can’t talk.

I can’t move.

I can’t do anything until he says, “I want you to.”

“To go?”

“Go see everything, see what I was, see…” he drinks, swallows and sets down the bottle on the round table, “I can’t tell you all of it, Garrett. I won’t,” he folds his arms, “I won’t tell you. That’s true. That’s the truth. I don’t lie, but there are things I won’t fucking say anymore. I won’t look back, just--” he sighs, “But you need to know, right? That’s what you need?”

I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “Yeah, you do. So… go.”

I run my hand through my hair, “What are you… are you going? Go… with me?”

He stares at me, “No.”

I nod, feeling my hands go cold, “Will you be here when I come back?”

“If you come back.”

And that’s when I see it.

I see past the anger.

That’s what this is to him.

 _If._

 _If I come back._

 _Because what I see might be enough that I won’t--_

“Fen…”

His eyes are hot, wide, white around green and he moves different. Jerking. His hands don’t shake, they’re steady, but I think it’s only because he’s gripping his arms so tightly.

“How long will it take me to get there?”

He shrugs, “From here? Uh…” his voice cracks, “ask at the fucking desk, Garrett. They’ll tell you.”

The heat’s gone out of the fight, and now there’s just him and me and the stale air between us.

I nod, grabbing my coat, checking my pockets neurotically to make sure I have my keycard, my phone, my wallet…

I put on my coat. My Dad’s coat.

He doesn’t move.

He stands there in front of the window.

I’m by the door.

But I stop.

I reach up, unlatch the clasp on the chain around my neck, take it off.

I cross the room closing the chain, leaving it, the little silver shield that was Mom’s and then Dad’s and then waited in the inside of a coat pocket for almost ten years to be mine, on the table behind him with a soft little thud.

 _I’m coming back._

I want to say it to his back, to his stiff curved back.

But I don’t say anything.

I’m choking on it.

I pick up the card and I leave. I leave him there.

I get directions, and I leave the hotel.

 _I’m coming back._

…

It is not, as the cards might have suggested, a large gallery.

It’s small. Nondescript. And there aren’t more than five people inside when I get there.

 _I want to run._

It didn’t take very long to get here.

I’ve been in the neighborhood for hours now. I found a coffee shop across the street and sat inside with a cup of black coffee, and then another, and then another.

My hands are shaking when I do finally cross the street, waiting at the light, and I bury them in my coat pockets.

It’s getting dark now, and the lights inside the gallery are warm.

Inviting. But not.

I don’t want to go in.

 _This is how I felt._

 _I felt the same way._

 _Dad was in a box in a room and we were supposed to go in and say goodbye._

 _And the room looked nice. It didn’t look like a room with a dead body in it. It just looked like a living room in some old person’s house._

 _But it wasn’t that._

 _Mom coerced Bethy and Carver to go in. For closure. So they'd really believe he was gone. Everything happened so fast... it was a nightmare and we'd all wake up and Dad would be in the living room in his chair smiling and..._

 _She couldn’t coerce me._

 _I didn’t go in._

 _I couldn’t._

I open the glass door and a girl with asymmetrical hair looks up at me and smiles and hands me a piece of paper that I don’t want to hold.

It’s free to go in.

Which kind of surprises me.

It’s a well laid out exhibition. There’s money in this. The lighting, the mounting… and the video.

There’s video. Fuck.

I hear him before I see him.

Fen’s voice, softly, from a speaker on a small mounted HD-TV. One of several.

It’s all Fen.

 _I can’t do it._

I turn, to leave, to just walk out of here because it looks like a regular room but it isn’t.

But the first picture stops me. Completely.

It’s small. Very small. Not a good photograph. Not one that Dan A. took with an expensive camera. It’s small, and grainy, black and white. Like newsprint.

A school photo, from a year book.

One tiny photo framed in a mat that is too big, in a frame that is too big.

One tiny relic of a childhood that no one talks about.

I make a choking noise, somewhere in the vicinity of a sob and a gasp, and the one other person meandering through the room looks at me but I don’t give a shit.

He’s small. Wiry. Black hair and dark skin, light eyes. It’s nearly impossible to tell what he’s wearing, the picture is so small, but whatever it is it’s too big for him; skinny neck, narrow shoulders, light smart eyes. _Leto, Fourth Grade._

I’m in. I can’t, but I have to.

I walk where the room guides me. To a video. The first.

The audio is low, carefully low, so that you only really hear what he’s saying standing directly in front of it. It loops. Fen, with his head shaved and a scar that isn’t completely a scar yet running from his temple up to the crown of his head. Fen against a white background, well-lit, in a wife-beater, handsome and dangerous and not tattooed.

“What do I like?” he looks directly into the camera, he answers a question I don’t hear in an accent that’s thicker than what I’ve heard before, the accent of someone who hasn’t lived in London, and Iceland, in Mexico, “I like… oxygen,” his eyes are dark, “I like boys. I like girls. I like waking up in the morning, before you. I like… waking up.”

He smiles, full lips and white teeth…

Only one of his front teeth is chipped, a sharp clean diagonal line.

“I like waking up.”

It loops.

I walk. Framed prints, black and white, no color. All Fen.

He’s beautiful.

I can’t breathe.

He’s naked and un-marked, the full stretch of his body, younger and somehow softer than it is now, in profile… no tattoos, just scars.

And his hair has grown out, from that video.

His hair grows longer in each picture, each clip, around the room… the passing of time.

And the tattoos start. Spreading like roots across his body, gradually, wrapped in clear plastic to heal.

Framed. Photographed. The first ones across his shoulders, then down, down his chest, down his back, arms, legs.

Finally his throat.

A short clip, the only one in color, his head bent back, throat… _throat that I can’t touch_ , exposed, stretched open, and the buzz of a tattoo needle, the swipe of a rubber gloved hand wiping away blood and ink.

The sound of the needle makes me dizzy.

But it’s the groan of pain, or maybe not _pain_ that he makes in the video that makes my knees buckle for a second. His eyes are closed tight, hands gripping the leather of the chair he’s in. Gripping.

The video loops.

I can’t even look at these pictures. The ones of him with his hands behind his back, tied, the ones of him with Dan, I know it’s Dan even though I’ve never seen his face and his face isn’t in the pictures, just his body, tall and thin.

Fen with a woman, between her legs—

Fen being hurt. Leaning into pain, not away from it.

 _I can’t understand. Why?_

 _I want to ask._

 _Why?_

I hear Fen’s voice, sounding more like _him_ , in the next video, and I go to it… drawn to it.

“What don’t I like?” he blinks. Looking into the camera. Thinking. Just as well lit. Still wearing a wife beater… only now, in this video, the tattoos that I could draw like a map are there… bright and fresh across the dark skin of his shoulders, his chest, his neck, his chin, “I don’t like… carrots. I don’t like heights. I don’t like…” he shrugs.

Blinks.

“I don’t like people touching...” he touches the base of his throat with tattooed fingers, swallows, looks away.

“Why?” Dan’s voice, behind the lens.

Fen’s dark eyebrows come together; he doesn’t want to answer.

“Because… I need to breathe.”

The next photo, more tattoos in place. The smaller ones. The detail work.

Patterns of dots in the curls of ending lines.

A set, taken on the same day, in the same room, in the same light.

The last one, Fen’s head back, and ribbon, thick and soft and black looped around his neck, so many times, and held tight but not _tight_ around his tattooed throat by pale white hands. Dan’s hands.

And I want to break them.

 _I can’t._

 _I can’t._

 _He’s mine--_

No… no he’s not _mine_. He’s not anyone’s. He’s…

But I can’t.

The end of the prints, a last video. All the tattoos are there.

His eyes are tired, and he’s beautiful… so fucking beautiful.

But he’s hollow. Maybe drugs. Maybe not.

This… _fuck._

This isn’t art.

This is an indulgent expensive showcase for the years it took for this man to take something that was _beautiful_ , and break it down, apart, open.

Fen. He’s tattooed. And tired. There’s a thin black hoop in one ear. Black studs. Black hair. Light, smart eyes with unnaturally wide, open black centers.

He blinks. Tired.

And says nothing.

He doesn’t answer any questions.

He just looks.

And I feel like… he sees me.

But he obviously doesn’t.

Obviously.

The last print is huge. The last one on the way out. At least five-foot by five-feet. On the facing wall to the tiny school picture, directly across from it. Fen, shirtless, dark eyes and dark hair, looking over his shoulder.

His scarred, tattooed shoulder.

“Is the artist here?”

I’m standing, frozen in front of the picture and turn when some woman asks the girl at the front.

“No, he isn’t.”

I would break his face.

Not that… I’ve ever even slapped someone.

But I would.

Right now, if the _artist_ were here.

I would break his face. And his hands.

Because sometimes that’s what you need to do, right?

“He’s very exotic looking…”

I make a noise, frustrated and trapped and… my eyes sting, and these two women _look_ at me.

I look back at Fen, at five-by-five Fen.

Between he and I, in the center of the room, there’s a plaster cast. Of a chest. I’d walked right by it before.

And it seems too small to be his.

But I know it must be.

Cut down the back to be removed from his body and then tied back together, painted black. A plaster cast that looks like armor, left behind by some soldier. Or a warrior. Or something.

Left on the ground, in the middle of the room, next to a wolf’s pelt.

 _I think about Frida Kahlo._

That’s the only place my brain allows me to go at that moment, staring at the cast in the room.

She’d been in a bus accident. She broke her spine, and a lot of other things. She was in and out of plaster casts for the rest of her life, confined to a bed with just paint and canvas… and the casts.

She’d paint them. Butterflies. Beautiful things. Later communist iconography. Things she believed in bigger than her body.

I stare at the cast, Fen’s cast, and think of Frida, and the only thing running in my head is _a ribbon around a bomb, a ribbon around a bomb, a ribbon around a bomb…_

 _Tick._

I’m walking towards the door, which means I still have legs… which I guess is nice to know.

 _Tick._

“Visceral, isn’t it?” The girl asks me, with that tone of someone trying to sell something.

Because all of this, him, is for _sale_.

 _Boom._

I’m outside. And it’s dark. And I can’t remember how to get back to the hotel from here.

I yell, frustrated, and I don’t care that a few people look.

They keep walking. I’m not that exciting.

My heart is pounding.

I yell again.

And again, after, because _jesus fucking Christ_ punching a brick wall fucking _hurts_.

I may have broken something.

My brain idly considers that.

But I can still move it.

And the scraped off skin on my knuckles… the sting actually feels good, in a way…

I start walking.

Because I need to.

I’ll take a cab back, when I catch one.

My phone is in my hand.

The possibly-broken one.

Ringing.

Ringing.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What…” Carver sounds bored, the way he usually does on the phone, “What?”

I laugh, stupidly, “I just punched a _wall_!”

“Uh-huh?”

I think he’s smiling.

“It really fucking hurts!”

He laughs, “Yeah. Right? Uh… why?”

“I…” I can’t tell him, “I’m in New York.”

Like that’s an answer.

“Oh. Right, uh...”

I’m laughing, manic, and a cab passes by me.

“Did you have your thumb on the outside?” he asks me.

“No.”

“Is it broken?”

“Uh,” I check, “No. But maybe.”

“You’d know if it was.”

“Carver?”

“Yeah?”

I flag down another cab.

“What?”

“I miss Dad.”

He doesn’t say anything.

I get in, tell the driver the name of the hotel, shut the door.

And as we pull out, away from the gallery, Carver says, “Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“High?”

“No.”

He’s quiet for a while, and I don’t mind… I like having him there, on the other end… because then at least I’m not really alone… and I can focus on him… and not…

 _Fen with his hands tied behind his back._

 _Fen with ribbons around his throat._

 _Fen…_

“I do, too.”

I swallow.

Loudly.

“I love you, Carver.”

“You’re drunk! I knew it!” he laughs, awkwardly, and quickly ends the conversation.

But I’m glad he picked up, anyway.

He never picks up.

…

When I come into the room, all the lights are on, and the TV’s on, and Fen’s sitting on the edge of the bed, staring forward at nothing.

I close the door behind me. He doesn’t look up.

He doesn’t look at me.

But I can see him breathing. His sides, where his lungs are, bare.

Fast, shallow breaths.

His shoulders move. _Shake._

His elbows are on his thighs and his back is curved and a part of me wants to remind him to sit up straight, it’ll hurt--

But I don’t.

I just stand there in the doorway; I am too big for this room.

His hands are folded in front of him.

There’s an empty box of cigarettes behind him. He quit. He stopped smoking when they told him that he should, for the sake of the bones in his back, bone health, less chance of future surgery--

 _He smoked them all but his hands are folded, empty, now._

Wrapped around one hand, like a rosary, is a thin silver chain.

Mine.

He doesn’t look at me.

His head falls forward, hair covering his face.

I need water. I’m dehydrated and I feel dizzy, weak. Too much coffee.

I swallow, “You…”

He doesn’t look up at me, just down, between his knees, at the patterned carpet between his bare, tattooed feet.

But I say it.

I say it.

“Fen. I am… I am so sorry.”

I can’t move.

“I’m so sorry that… that happened. To you. That… that’s what it… I’m so sorry. I wish I could… but I _can’t._ ”

He breathes faster, caught.

“I wish I could change that,” my voice cracks, “but I can’t. No one can. That’s… _I can’t._ ”

“I understand.”

That’s all he says.

He doesn’t look at me.

He doesn’t move.

 _Fuck! No. No._

“No. Fen,” I take a step towards him, “look at me.”

He doesn’t. Can’t.

“Fen, I’m sorry that _that_ happened to you. Look at me, please?”

His hands are together, tight, _holding on_ , but he turns and looks at me.

“I hate that… but it made you who you are now. I _love_ the person you are.”

He cracks, folding in on himself, letting go of a breath held deep enough it looks like it hurts to let go of.

I go to him, in front of him. I hold his head in my hands.  
And he reaches for me, for my arms, my side, fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt, holding on to _me_.

“I’m here, Fen,” I say it, and it comes out hard, but I mean it to come out soft, “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

 _When I was a kid, I used to think there was a ghost in my bedroom._

 _My mom, who believes in bad energy but not in ghosts, told me that if I wanted it to go away, all I needed to do was stand in my doorway and say, “I want you to go away now!” and mean it. Say it loudly. Firmly. Ghosts listen to that, she told me._

 _That’s how I say it._

 _Because it feels like there’s a ghost here._

 _And I want it to go away._

“I’m here.”

 _I mean this._

“I love who you are.”

Everything is still for a moment. Too still.

And then everything happens too fast.

I can’t keep track of how we move. It’s a blur and I have too much adrenaline. Too much love. Too much hate, leftover. My hand hurts. My heart hurts.

We’re kissing on the hotel bed. Not sweet. Not gentle. Not an _I Love You_ kiss. Desperate. _I need you._

We’re both fighting.

We stop long enough for me to untangle the silver chain around his hand. He’d held onto it so tightly that the shield left a dent on the mound of his thumb. I kiss it, tongue it, and he sighs, growls, grinds against me.

I put the chain on, warm from his skin, around my neck. Safe. The ghost in the room is _gone_ but it left a void and we’re struggling against each other because we need each other, and we still need to struggle.

He fights me, I fight him back, pushing him down, under _me_.

He kisses me, hard, _under_ me.

And I know, in some far removed wasteland of my brain, that while he could push me off, he pulls me in.

I taste the sweat, the tobacco, salt, wine, him.

He bites my lip, and I groan, because it hurts and because it doesn’t hurt enough.

He holds my hand. Blood and torn skin.

“What the fuck did you do, Garrett?” he goes still, hot and hard against me, staring at my hand in his hand.

“I punched a wall.”

His eyes close and he kisses my broken skin. His mouth is hot. It stings.

He pulls off my scarf, my hoodie, my shirt.

I drive forward into him, but he needs to be the one in control. He grabs the belt loops of my pants and I hear them rip but I don’t stop.

My hands are at his zipper.

“Off,” I growl, pulling, tearing, pulling them off.

He’s hard and so am I.

This isn’t sweet.

This is a fight for dominance.

Because he needs to fight and I need to fight.

 _Fight, Fen._

 _Fight me._

I’m still on top, pinning him under me with my weight.

He’s stronger than I am, but I’m bigger than he is.

Chest to chest, I kiss him, pulling his breath out.

I have both his wrists in my hand, pinning them to the bed over his head.

“Fuck,” he snarls, gasps, “fuck…”

I still hold his wrists, chest to chest, and I reach between us, stroking him.

He fucks my hand, watching my face, he thrusts up, thrusts because he can.

His legs are together, between mine.

“Fuck,” I sigh, because his body is under _me_.

I pull back, a little, looking down at him, watching my hand on him. Still holding his wrists, I let go of his cock, letting it rest against his belly, and shove my fingers down, around, past and under his balls, pressing against him, between his legs.

His eyes burn up at me.

But he doesn’t push me away.

He could.

I feel that in his wrists, _tension_ , in his arms.

I touch him, pushing my hand between his legs where he’s hot, where he’s sweating, not gentle, he doesn’t want _gentle_.

Finger tips against the stretch of skin between his balls and his asshole but _not_ , not there, not until his head comes up, neck straining, and he kisses me, sighs, “…fuck,” into my mouth, and I do, I touch him there, not in… brush past it, circle it, press against but not in.

He pants, growls against me and his head falls back.

I watch him, I touch, spit into my hand and rub between his legs, sweat and spit and I'm dizzy and hot. I push his legs together, hold my cock, over him, and I press between his thighs, driving down into the space where his thighs come together.

I fuck him like that, between his thighs, not… inside, but the motion, I mean…

 _Fucking._ Him. And he lets me. Allows me on top of him, fucking him, because I need to.

 _I need to. Right now._

I groan, open, into the space between our chests.

“Yeah,” he answers, and I look at him, eyes barely open, watching me, “Fuck, yeah.”

“You like this?”

I let go of his wrists, and his hands hold my head.

I lean on one arm, reach between us, hold him, stroke him, fuck him.

But not inside.

Still… rocking forward, in… I haven’t topped in a long time, I haven’t…

I kiss his throat, feel him gasping.

I bite.

He pushes me off, over, to the side before I can react I’m under him, where he wants me, _I’m his, I’m his, I’m his_ , and he’s spreading my legs.

“Over.”

I hesitate and he looks at me, pausing, breathing heavy, hair in his eyes.

He turns me over, and I let him.

His hands, _spread me_ , his face, _his tongue_.

“Now,” I sag into the bed, feeling his hand on my back, arching me down.

He hesitates.

“You’re not--”

“No. Fuck me,” it comes out hard, “fuck me.”

I feel his weight shift behind me, between my legs, his thumb slides across my asshole.

“Hurt me.”

“ _What?_ ”

He pulls away.

“Hurt me,” my voice cracks, “I need you to, I need--” I look back at him, over my shoulder, “I need to know.”

He sits back. Not touching me.

“Garrett.”

“Fuck!” I groan into the mattress, between my hands.

“I don’t _want_ to hurt you,” he says slowly, “That’s not something I _want_ to do.”

“I hated…” I shake my head, pressing my hot face into the sheet, “you looked… happy.”

“I wasn’t,” he says it fast, “I wasn’t.”

“Please fuck me,” I hear myself and I sound weak, “please.”

Nothing. He doesn’t move and neither do I.

Until I feel his warm hand against my hip, pushing me.

Gently, “Over, Garrett.”

I do. My legs shake.

On my back, with him between my legs, he kisses me, carefully.

“I wasn’t happy. It felt… good,” he says, eyelashes dark black and thick on his cheekbones, “Because it felt like something.”

I can’t kiss him back. I’m having a hard enough time just breathing.

“Can you…” he smiles, a very small little hidden smile, “say it again?”

“Say… what, Fen?”

I can feel his heart pounding, harder than his seemingly calm exterior suggests his heart should be beating, “You said…”

“What? ‘Fuck me’?”

He shakes his head, “No…” forehead against mine, “I _will_ do that though.”

“Please… I need--”

He nods, “I know.”

He tenses up, like he’s getting off the bed, “No condom.”

He looks at me.

We’ve always used one. For this. _Habit_ , he says… we’re both clean, healthy…

Habit.

He hesitates.

But he goes, I watch him. Out of the bag, lube. A condom.

“No--”

He kisses me, “I… know. Okay.”

“Okay.”

I’m not ready. It’s going to hurt.

He slicks himself up, not enough, without a condom.

“I want this,” I sigh when he lines himself up with me.

But he pauses.

“Please say it again.”

 _Like a command._

“Fuck--”

“No…” he shakes his head, “the other thing. That you said. Before.”

“I don’t… what did I say?”

“That you…” he blinks, looking up at me carefully, the head of his cock bare and pressed against me, “that… the person that I am, that you…”

“That I love you?”

His breathing hitches, “Yeah…”

“Fen,” I reach for his head, his jaw.

“Say…” he sags, “please?”

“I love you.”

He breathes out.

Christ. I don’t know if anyone’s ever said that to him--

 _Wait._

 _No._

“Hang on… _I_ told you.”

“What?”

“Before,” I gasp, because he’s pushing in and it _burns_ , “oh, fuck--”

“Jesus Christ,” he doesn’t stop, “When?”

“What?” I want to push him away, but I don’t.

“When did you?”

“Before we… in my room…” I shut my eyes tight, “Ow, shit.”

“No, you… you were talking about _pie._ ”

“I…” _fuck_ , “I meant you. I just...” I crack my eyes open, “I thought you knew?”

He laughs, barely, still pushing in, still and it’s so much, and I’m not ready for him and--

“I just thought you were talking about fucking pie.”

He’s in, deep, and it hurts, it _hurts_ but I hold on to him, onto his arms, “I was… _fuck_ , pouring out my heart.”

“About,” he pulls back, slowly and I’m _dying_ , my body tries to pull away from him but he holds on, hands on my hips, hard, bruising hard, “pie.”

I laugh, but there are tears in the corners of my eyes, and I could tip over into crying… I could but I don’t, “Shut up.”

And he does.

He fucks me slowly at first, long deep thrusts.

It hurts.

But it’s… I can’t think beyond anything else but the heat and the pain and the intrusion of _him_ inside of _me_.

He fucks faster, harder.

Harder.

“Open up,” he says, holding my jaw in his hand, “open up for me, come on, come on.”

And I do.

And the pain fades.

And it’s just me and him and the memory that something deep inside hurt, before it didn’t.

He stops talking, stops saying anything. I tell him I want him to come inside of me, that I want that.

Fucking, harder, faster, losing his rhythm, close.

“Fen…”

Closer.

“Look at me.”

His eyes are closed, and his neck is tight. He starts to turn.

He doesn’t open his eyes, but he doesn’t turn his face away either.

And I see him.

He comes inside of me, and, _fuck_ I feel it deep and--

 _Fuck._

I come between us, falling over the edge so hard that it hurts, and I curl up, into him.

He stays inside of me for a long time.

Pushing deeper when he’s soft, when he starts to fall out.

I hold onto him.

“Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“Your throat?” he sighs, his cheek pressed against my chest, “I always thought it was Dan. It was before Dan, wasn’t it?”

He nods, “Yeah.”

“What happened?”

He swallows, heart beating hard against me.

He tells me. The whole story.

…

I wake up naked in the dark in a cold bed. He’s not there.

 _Gone._

His side of the bed is empty. Cold. Cold like he was never there, like he--

 _Don’t do this, please, please, Fen, please--_

I’m pulling on whatever clothes are near me in the dark. Off the floor.

Cold. Pants, I think, socks, shirt, where’s my _fucking_ shirt?!

 _Please, Fen, please…_

 _Please don’t be far away yet._

 _Please._

 _Please._

 _Please don’t be fast._

 _Please._

Good enough. Dressed enough.

I’ll find him.

In New York.

Wherever he went.

I’ll find him.

I--

I think I’m going to be sick.

He’s gone.

After… after all that. After--

A soft noise in front of me, on the other side of the door.

 _Beep._

 _Swipe._

 _Click._

Yellow light from the hallway pours into the dark room around the shape of him.

Around _Fen_.

Fen with a white plastic key card in his hand. In his coat. Fen staring up at me with dark eyes. He doesn’t move.

And neither do I, but I want to.

I want to touch him.

I want to know that…

…that I’m not crazy. That he’s there.

“Fen.”

My voice cracks.

He turns on the light, and his finger stays on the switch.

He closes the door behind him.

“I didn’t--”

“You were gone, I--”

He breathes heavily, tired, and I smell smoke on his breath, filling the space between us. “I’m sorry, Garrett.”

I want to ask _where did you go?_

 _Why did you leave without telling me?_

I want to tell him _I thought you ran._

 _I thought it was too much._

But I don’t say anything.

I can’t.

My heart is stuck in my throat, crawling towards my mouth and I can’t breathe around it. _I can’t breathe._

“I went. I.. I needed to, see. I needed it to be done,” His voice is low, rough… exhausted, “I was tired of running.”

“What?”

“I saw it."

“Oh…” I blink, stupidly, “It’s late.”

 _Jesus, he looks thin._

“Couldn't sleep. I used to know the guy who owns the… gallery,” he looks up at me, dark circles under his eyes, with his finger still pressed against the plastic frame around the switch.

“You went? Alone.”

He nods, “It didn’t…” he sneers, shaking his head, “It didn’t feel _done_ , before. I…” he frowns and looks down, away from me, “I haven’t looked back, for a long time. I couldn’t. I couldn’t,” he swallows, and with his head bowed under the square light fixture, I can see the long scar in his hair, “I needed to look back. They’re… pictures,” he looks up at me, “just pictures. And… you can’t own what’s in them. As soon as you take a picture… the moment’s gone. And you can-- buy it and _he can_ sell it… but no one owns it. He doesn’t own me, or the moment, the thing, the person.”

I can’t move.

He won’t.

“Fen,” I swallow, “I didn’t know where you went.”

His breathing hitches.

“I thought…” my eyes sting, “I thought you were gone, Fen.” _My hands feel so empty._ “I… god,” I can feel it in my eyes, hot and stinging, and I’m choking on it… on the fear, leftover panic, thick and hot in my throat… that he-- “Fen. I waited for-- I think I waited my whole life for _you_ to show up. And… and now, I don’t want you to go. I… I don’t want you to go somewhere that I can’t follow you.”

He looks up at me, then, leaning his shoulder against the wall-papered wall, eyes hot, bright, alive. _Here._

“I just… I just want to be where you are. Because, I _waited_ for _you_. I… I don’t want to _wait_ again, Fen. I don’t think I can. Because it was just… it was always you.”

He pushes away from the wall, fast, hard. Like it hurts. Like his whole body hurts.

But he collides with me, uncareful, ungraceful, because there’s no one here to see, just us and this need and the fear cooling, choking, hard and solid in my throat, _breathe into me, babe, please_ , I need him to breathe into me because his weight, his body and the heat of him have knocked all the air out of my body. _Out_. He pounds his fist against my chest, once, just as hard, but I don’t fall back, I don’t fall away. I lean in. I hold his arms in my hands because I hate the way that they feel empty.

He’s pulling me down to him… inhaling me, devouring me… and…

 _I don’t want to think of him as a wolf anymore… he was someone elses wolf. Someone before me… someone--_

His whole body is hot in my hands, against me, everywhere… everywhere I can touch him, feel him.

And he’s real.

He’s not a wolf.

He’s Fen.

Who used to be Leto.

Who got into fights.

Who I waited and waited for.

Fen.

Here. With me.

And as much as anyone can be anyone’s--

I’m his.

“I just want to be where you are,” I gasp into his mouth, into his hands.

He holds my face.

His hands are wet.

I _cried_.

I don’t care.

I don’t fucking care.

I _don’t_ care.

I cried into Fen’s hands.

“I’m yours.”

His hands press against my face, to get my attention, to focus me, “Whatever… whatever happens now, after this… I want it to be with you, Hawke. I… I want to be where you are, too.”

I nod, and breathe out slowly, “Are you okay?”

His thumbs are gentle but steady against my temples, “It’s done.”

“Done.”

“Yes.”

“It’s late.”

“It’s early,” he smiles, tired.

“I don’t think I can sleep.”

“I know I can’t.”

I laugh, shaking, and turn, pressing my lips against his warm, cupped palm, “You want to get out of here?”

“Yes.”

“You wanna get some coffee?”

He sighs, and I look at him, at green eyes and a face that I know better than my own.

Hand on the back of my neck, he pulls me to him, and kisses me softly. So softly.

There are three words in that kiss.

I hear them, even though he doesn’t say them.

He’s not going to say them.

And that’s okay.

I hear them anyway.

And more than that.

I feel them, deep, somewhere deep.

He kisses me again, lightly, carefully.

“Yeah. I do.”

I take the time to change into an actual outfit, laughing with a kind of manic edge when I realize what I was about to run out of here in… like a crazy person… I pull off the jeans that he ripped with shaking hands and stand there by the bed, this messy, unmade hotel bed where I thought, for the worst moment of my life, that he’d left me.

He’s looking at me.

Watching me, chest rising and falling quickly, hands empty at his sides.

Before I can pull the new pair from my bag, he’s there, holding my bare hip in his hand.

His thumb fits into a new bruise.

“Hey.”

He nods. Not looking at me.

I’m standing there in a shirt and naked from the waist down, save a pair of mismatched socks, one mine and one his. I grabbed them in the dark.

And his hand, curled against my hip. Skin. Bone. Bruise.

His thumb strokes me, once, twice, and he sits, heavily on the edge of the bed, on my side of the bed, facing me, hand anchored and hot against me.

He kisses the mark on my skin, and his lips are warm, perfect, “I waited for you too, Hawke.”

“I know you did,” I comb my fingers into his hair and he presses his forehead against my belly.

“Fuck, I’m glad I…” he holds my other hip in his other hand, and says something softly… and while I don’t understand him, I know that it’s something true, “ _Fundur þig var það besta sem gerist við mig._ ”

I stand there, both of my hands on his head, with him pressed against me, for a while. A few minutes.

“Hey, Fen?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me put on some pants, okay?”

He laughs, “Okay.” He sits back, looking up at me, looking like home in the hotel sheets, in a coat that’s buttoned up all the way like armor.

I get dressed, with him watching me the whole time.

We leave the room, a keycard in his pocket and one in mine, and we walk out of the hotel, walking in that cool still early morning light the filters through morning, shoes loud on wet concrete. There’s a coffee shop he used to go to. A long time ago.

Over terrible coffee, he pulls out his iphone, slides it across the table to me.

He took a picture of the first picture in the exhibit.

 _Leto, Fourth Grade._

“You were really cute,” I look at him. _I can’t remember ever being this tired._

“I’d never seen that before,” he smiles, genuine but exhausted, “I _was_ cute.”

This city is full of ghosts. Some of them will listen when you tell them to go. Others won’t.

But it doesn't matter because when we walk out into the city, we do it as two living bodies, side by side.


	49. Chapter 49

“ _Andy_ \--

 ** _Shh, just_** , he kisses me with a fierce, Andy-like tenderness, aww, **_I know you miss him. I know because you haven’t stopped talking about him once in the entire time he’s been gone. No. Seriously. You talk about Fen, like, all the time,_** he kisses my neck, and whispers, **_I know that you’re hurting. Just let me do this for you. Once._**

 ** ** _Just once?_****

 ** _Yes,_** his hand strokes against the length of my manhood through my apron and jeans and embarrassing tighty-whities that I’m, for god only knows what reason, really committed to, **_Garrett, I want you._**

I fall into him, crushing him against the wall. I pin him there with my comfortingly wide hips, holding his wrists above his head.

I want this. I do, I always have. I say, **_Once, Andy._**

We kiss there against the window of the shop, right there where any passer-by or curious and encouraging co-worker could see us.

Our tongues battle for dominance.

Andy tastes sweet and clean. Like the toothpaste that he never screws the damn cap back onto and also doesn’t ever squeeze it from the end like you’re supposed to.

I bite his lip and he gasps.

We’re really going to do this. Finally. After both of us have wanted this for so long. We’ve been so obvious about it. Such blatant unrequited manly-lusting on both sides.

We’re both so tall, and our long limbs tangle as our tongues continue to duel.

 ** _Here?_** I growl into his ear.

 ** _Where else? Garrett, I--_**

“Okay!” I can’t listen to this anymore. I try to take the pages from Andy who is laughing so much he can’t read, “Bela, Why are our tongues battling? And dueling?? How do tongues do either of those things? And… I’m sorry, my _manhood_?!”

“Oh, kitten, you should never apologize for your manhood,” Isabela can’t _breathe_ she’s laughing so hard, “Tiger, that is the _worst_ Garrett Hawke I’ve ever heard!”

“Give me that,” I finally snatch the pages out of his hands, “Jesus Christ…”

He looks up at her, grinning crookedly, “You hear a lot of Garrett Hawke impressions, Bela?”

“Are my hips really… _comfortingly wide??_ ” No one answers me, “What does that even mean?”

I keep reading. Andy stands up, tucking his chin on my shoulder and reading along.

Reading the _friend-fiction_ she has not only written about us… but _printed_ and brought into work today.

It’s… well. It gets filthy. Fast.

Thank god no one else is in the shop now.

“Oh, well… I would never do that,” I mark my place with a fingertip, and shake my head at her, “Especially not to him.”

“Hey! I’m right here,” he says, feigning hurt, “Although, honestly… I don’t think I’d want anyone doing that to me. Even you. Garrett, would you yourself describe your penis as ‘ruggedly sensitive’?”

“I would not. No. Never in my life,” I turn the page, “Oh, god! It’s illustrated!”

“I thought it would lift your spirits, kitten,” Isabela flips a towel over her shoulder.

“Give it back,” Andy reaches for the pages but I pull them out of his reach, “Oh, come on… _that_ needs to be read aloud.”

Isabela wipes tears from her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“No,” I fold them in half as the door opens and Dana, my sweet, innocent wide-eyed Dana, walks in, “No way.”

It’s her first time here in about a week. She looks back and forth between Andy and me as I’m holding him back with a hand planted squarely in the center of his chest.

He’s laughing and as annoyed as I am, I take just a second to appreciate how content and healthy he looks. He’s just come back from a month in the Greek islands with Nate… he says all they did was swim and eat and had, oh, so much sex... and it shows. He’s relaxed and tan and fit… I hate to use the word robust for anything that isn’t a flavor, but… Andy is _robust._

“Morning,” Dana stares, “What are you…”

“Nothing!”

Andy grabs the pages from me and takes them back to his table, sitting down and reading the rest of it silently, his hand covering his mouth as he laughs, shoulders shaking.

Sighing heavily, I go behind the counter.

“So?” I say, setting her iced-tea (now that it’s warm, I can’t believe it’s June already, she has forgone the usually hot chocolate in favor of something cold) down next to her stack of art books, “How was it?”

“Amazing!” she beams, “Your sister is so, so nice and the school was… incredible! They’re archives are… what’s another word for amazing or incredible?”

“Uhh…” Andy looks up from the stapled pages, freckled nose wrinkling, “ _‘magnificent’_?”

“Is that in there?” I cringe.

He shrugs and nods, reading slowly, “ _‘Garrett’s magnificent--’_ ”

“Right!” I turn, “Yes. Archives.”

I hear Isabela laughing as she takes scones out of the oven.

Dana gives me a suspicious look, “Yeah… anyway, uh… they have such a, uh, an incredible art history program. And I could learn how to do art restoration. Wouldn’t that be perfect? I could help preserve these incredible pieces of art…”

I smile, “I think that sounds great. Bethany was a good tour guide?”

“She was great! She let me sleep in her dorm. I’ve never even been in a dorm before. And I met her boyfriend and--”

“I’m sorry, her _what_?”

Her eyes go wide, “Uhh… her… _boyfriend_.”

“Right, ah,” I make a mental note to call my sneaky little sister later, “Anyway, that’s great Dana.”

“You helped so much. I’m going to start working on my application materials now. It’s so perfect…” she sips her tea, “But, uh… It’s Tuesday.”

“It is.”

“So… tomorrow’s the big day for you, right?”

I swallow, “Yes. It is.”

“Oh, great! How long will he be back?”

“A couple of weeks,” I wipe at the counter with a towel. Maybe I have been talking about Fen too much, as was pointed out so subtly in that… friend-fiction.

“He’ll be here for the play then?”

I laugh awkwardly, “Yes. He will.”

The play. Dana helped Isabela and Merrill put up posters for _the play_ thus earning herself a credit in the program under publicity.

“Great!” she says as Isabela sets down a plate in front of her with a freshly baked scone, “You’re really great in it. I think. I mean. Um…”

“He’s so self deprecating about it,” Bela scratches my back between my shoulders, “He’s a fantastic Macbeth, isn’t he?”

“Mmhmm!” Dana tucks into her scone, “So good. I understand every word.”

“Well… that’s something.”

“And Merrill! Oh my gosh.”

“I know…”

Duncan had apparently been desperate to direct _Macbeth_ for years and finally secured some funding. Isabela is his Assistant Director and she’s the one who talked Merrill into auditioning.

And when their original Macbeth, some blonde kid, abruptly left down… Isabela asked me to step in. Last minute.

I mean… with Fen gone, it was appealing… to have something to do in the evenings most nights.

I haven’t acted in years. I’m rusty. And memorization is so much harder at twenty-eight than it was at eighteen and I have so many lines…

But, actually, it’s really fun. I have these moments of really _feeling_ it. I have a fight scene with Alistair and he and I have been having way too much fun doing that. For two such tall and relatively in-shape men, we are both shockingly uncoordinated… which has been a real bonding experience for us.

And… also? Merrill is amazing. Like, scary and intense and… Merrill is an _actress_. She’s so natural at it… when she comes out with bloody hands and a knife… I mean… she’s _magnificent._

Or. Some other word that isn’t magnificent.

“You coming to rehearsal again tonight, sweet thing?” Bela asks Dana.

She shrugs, “If I get my homework done early.”

“The uh,” Bela glances at me sideways, “kilts have arrived.”

I groan, hanging my head.

“What’s that now?” Andy asks from his table.

“The _kilts_ are here, tiger! They’ll be in kilts tonight.”

“Oh, well,” he sets down the pages, grinning at me, “I might have to finish my homework early tonight too then.”

“Magnificent,” I break off a corner of Dana’s scone and man the counter as a group of elderly customers comes in.

…

“Merrill’s lips are so soft,” I’m eating my burger in front of the laptop, “And she’s so tiny. She’s like a little pepperminty bird with soft lips.”

This is the routine. Has been for a while. When it’s possible.

I’m not going to lie… I really look forward to this all day long.

I look forward to Fen.

Even Fen over Skype.

“I’m telling you…” he shakes his head, rubbing his hair with a towel, “I can’t even form a realistic mental image of the two of you kissing.”

“Jealous?”

He chuckles, “Insanely.”

“Well… you’ll get to see it happen on-stage and in the flesh soon enough.”

“No rehearsal tomorrow night, right?”

“None at all. For me anyway. Bela did me a solid and scheduled a no-Macbeth required _Macbeth_ rehearsal. Conveniently.”

He smiles, “She’s a good woman.”

“With clear priorities. I’m getting the haircut tomorrow,” I say, passing a forlorn looking Bradley a fry. Satisfied, he then hops off my bed and trots out of the room, “Before you get in.”

Apparently, Duncan’s vision is for a Macbeth with shorter hair. It’s fine with me. I’m due for a haircut. I haven’t really touched it since before New York, in March, so… it’s reached a level of unkemptedness that even I’m uncomfortable with.

“She’s taking me to a salon. Her _salon_.”

He leans in closer to the screen, “It’s a little long, isn’t it?”

“A bit.”

“I like it.”

He grins back. That happy Fen grin. Happy and a little pervy. _He likes being able to grab a handful of it and pull my head back and--_

I grin, stupidly, “Yeah?”

He _is_ happy. Really. He’s been happier in general since New York. But, getting this job is a big part of it too. He doesn’t have to do weddings now. He gets to travel. The money is good and he still gets to work fairly independently. All things that he likes.

This distance thing, though, that’s been… hard. But not as hard as I thought it would be, honestly.

It was harder when he was in Reykjavik for two weeks… because of the time difference, but now that he’s just in Portland?

Well, at least we’re in the same time zone.

And this isn’t forever. He’ll be able to work out of Kirkwall as soon as the magazine (it’s symbolically ‘the magazine’ -- they’re calling it that even though it’s, like, mostly a blog… because no one buys print anymore…) gets a little more settled.

I’ve been busy at night with rehearsals. Nights that we don’t rehearse have been spent, with the group. Dinners. At Gilly’s place especially. He and Merrill have started throwing these themed dinner parties.

The last one was D&D&D… Dungeons and Dragons and Dinner.

Costumes are required by the hosts. I wore my Spartacus armor over my clothes to that one. Bela wore chainmail. We had turkey legs and played D&D (which Andy was completely perplexed by… and which, much to my surprise, Isabela was an old-hand at). I mean… doing that kind of stuff with them has made the fact that Fen is far away easier to deal with.

Skype has also helped.

Fen stands up and I can see the lower half of him in the frame.

He’s wearing a towel and his back brace.

And I love him.

In a towel and a back brace.

He’s gone for a minute, coming back with a glass of water.

I tell him about work. The friend-fiction and Dana, and about how Bethany apparently has a boyfriend now (who she claims is not a boyfriend at all but just a boy who happens to be her friend…).

He tells me about the editorial he’s working on. The obnoxiously touchy-feely team-building workshop they had at the end of the day.

I tell him about rehearsal.

He tells me about the shower he took when he got home.

And I grin.

He’s in bed now too, his hair messy and still a little wet.

In the center of his chest, hanging from its chain, I see my little silver shield.

“You still wearing that towel?”

He smiles, his right hand coming into view as he rests his palm against his chest, red string still tied around his wrist, “No.”

That red string. The day he left this time, I noticed it was starting to fray. I said something about it, to which he cooly replied that when it fell off, he was going to take it as a sign that it’s time to move on.

When I made what he refers to as my wounded-badger face he took it back. Swiftly and sincerely.

I knew he was kidding, but all the same, I have since made him a new, structurally reinforced string to replace that one when the time comes.

His hand slides down, out of frame.

His eyes close and he sighs my name, “ _Hawke._ ”

“I’m so ready for you to be here,” I watch the muscles in his chest flex has his hand moves, frustratingly, out of frame until my eyes slip closed, fingers wrapped around myself, listening to him, moaning, through the speakers, “So, so ready.”

His voice cracks, “Keep talking, Hawke.”

Did I mention I look forward to this all day?

Because, _oh fuck_ , I do.

…

I might be freaking out. I think that’s fair, given what’s just happened.

“Tell me the truth…” I can see my reflection in her sunglasses, “How… bad is it?”

“Calm down,” Isabela’s staring at my head, “It looks fine.”

“Fine?”

“Good. Great!” she frowns, “Good.”

My hair.

Okay well, let’s just be honest, it’s gone.

My hair is gone.

Not trimmed.

Gone.

I look past her in the reflection of a window.

 _My head is so round. And big._

 _Holy God._

 _I’m a monster._

“Isabela…”

“I… it’ll grow out.”

“I’m _bald_.”

“You’re not bald.”

I can see my scalp. I’m not… shiny bald. It’s maybe, _maybe_ an eighth of an inch of hair.

“You look cute.”

I had no idea I was so attached to it. Physically… yes, I was _very_ much aware of how attached I was when the freaking trimmer-thing dug in and my hair started _falling_ , everywhere… by the time I objected it was too late.

But, emotionally? No idea. Until it’s gone and my head is round and--

“Cute?!”

“Darling.”

“Duncan wanted it this short??”

She shrugs, “Yeah. Oh, kitten… I had no idea you were so vain.”

“I’m not vain! I’m just… _bald_.”

“No--”

“Fuck, my ears are massive! I can’t believe you took me to a salon to give me a buzz cut,” I snap, “My mother could have done that in the bathroom.”

“This argument just took a strange turn.”

“You…” I make a frustrated sound, “Dammit.”

“Let me buy you lunch.”

“And a drink?”

“Yes. Whatever you want.”

“I want buffalo wings. Loads of them.”

She laughs, “Okay. Fair enough…” I let her wrap an arm around my waist, “It does look nice by the way. Really. It’s nice to see your whole face for a change.”

I rub my head as we walk, “It’s just so… _weird_. It feels weird. Feel this.”

She reaches up and rubs my head, what she can reach of it, “Yeah. That’s… it feels nice. And at least your head isn’t… malformed or anything.”

“Thank god for that,” I roll my eyes and brush hair from the front of my t-shirt.

“Your profile is actually… striking, kitten.”

“It was likely just as striking when I had hair.”

“Hmm,” she shrugs, “maybe. You can’t hide behind it now. Maybe that’s it.”

“I don’t…” I stop walking, “I don’t hide.”

“Whatever you say,” she opens the door to the pub for me, “After you.”  
I walk in rubbing my head with both hands.

 _I just… I’m dazed._

 _I woke up this morning with a full head of hair._

 _I’ve had a full head of hair for all of my sentient existence._

 _I’m Garrett Hawke, the tall awkward guy with paint on his shirt and that full head of hair._

After lunch (where I eat too many wings) I head home and grab Bradley taking him for a quick deject walk around the park. We sit together on the bridge. He licks my ear and I imagine that he’s just as puzzled by my new look as I am.

I don’t really understand why this is bothering me so much.

Maybe I am vain. Or… and I’m even less willing to own up to this one… maybe I have been hiding behind it. I do feel a bit exposed.

I had no idea.

I take a long, hot thinking-time shower. When I wash my 1/8th of an inch of hair I use way too much shampoo and completely gave up on the idea of conditioner.

Because _really_. What’s the point?

I trim my beard, too. It just looked… weird being so much fuller than the hair remaining on my head. I realize after the fact, standing there in the bathroom that I should have asked Isabela if it was okay for me to have done that. Theater rules. Because of the show for which I’m already shorn… like a tall sad sheep.

I’m on the couch when Fen comes in.

He doesn’t have an apartment in Kirkwall anymore. Just the studio in Portland. And here. My place.

He has a key.

I mean, he should, seeing as so much of his stuff is in my apartment now.

It’s mostly books and winter clothes and skeletons.

You know, regular stuff that you leave at your boyfriend’s house when you move away.

I hear him unlock the front door.

And I wait for him on the couch.

Bald and awkward.

I’m holding a pillow in my lap.

I haven’t seen him for weeks. I’m mean, on Skype. But… God. He’s… _Fen_. Here.

My heart is beating so fast.

Wearing a t-shirt and a cardigan, what he always flies in, he walks into the room and I look up at him.

“Hey, babe.”

He stops, cocks his head to the side, “…Hawke?”

I want to stand up and hold on to him, but he’s… staring. At my head. And… I want to apologize. Or something. Explain.

More than anything, I actually feel embarrassed. Not because I look ridiculous, but because I _am_ bothered.

I close my eyes for a second. _Get over it, Garrett, he’s here. Really. Right now._

I feel the warmth of his body against my legs. He’s standing close in front of me. His right hand is on my knee, skin on skin where the denim is shredded open.

And then his other hand is on my head, rubbing gently. _God, his hand is so warm_. I lean into his touch and groan softly and he rubs more, feeling the whole shape of my skull.

 _Which is fortunately not malformed._

He bends a finger gently under my chin, tilting my face up. His voice is soft and deep and _home_ , “Hawke.”

He kisses me. I can feel him smiling. Well, he’s amused at least.

I kiss him back, enthusiastically, reaching for his wrists with my eyes closed. He chuckles and reaches for the sides of my face, “Looks good.”

I pull him in, onto the couch, tossing the pillow I was spooning across the room to make room for him on me.

 _Since New York._

 _As awful as it was—_

 _As battered as I felt after everything that happened._

 _As much as my now scarred hand hurt._

 _As much as the anger that flared in my chest every time I looked down and saw the scabs and then the scars and remembered hurt._

 _As badly as I did in the competition (I mean… I placed in the top fifteen, which people, including Varric, said was good for a first time competitor)._

 _As much as so much of it hurt, since New York I’ve known that he’s always going to be home. Wherever he is. He’s my home._

 _I’ve known that since New York. Without panic or doubt or insecurity._

 _So as much as New York hurt, it was worth it._

 _Because this clarity? This calm that I have now, here, bald and vain though I may be, on my couch with Fen’s weight on me?_

 _It’s worth everything._

His fingers are warm and strong at the back of my very exposed neck.

“Welcome home,” I kiss his jaw, “Sorry I’m bald.”

“Sorry? You look…” he rests his forehead against mine and says with his eyes closed, “Bed. Now.”

“Fuck. Yes.”

He smiles, broad and happy, and rubs my head with his palm again and chuckles, “Christ!”

“I know…” I groan.

“I actually like it,” he says leading me out of the living room, “I mean… I wasn’t _expecting_ it.”

“You still like me?”

He stops walking and turns, closing the distance between himself and, and consequently between my back and the wall.

He holds me there. He’s smiling crookedly, but there’s something deeply serious in his eyes that takes me by surprise. He nods.

I curl down to kiss him, one corner of his mouth and then the other.

And then everything is fast, hot, hard. A blur of _want and need._

Clothes gets pulled off, tugged away, dropped between the kitchen and my bed.

We drop into bed which I haven’t made in a week, and there’s so much, so _much_ and I just need _him_.

We’re tangled together, face to face, my hand on his cock and his on mine, stroking, biting necks and shoulders and lips.

He makes me come first, watches my face, saying _look at me_ , holding my head and telling me when to come, _telling me that he needs me to_ , that I’m his and that he needs _me_.

I come, groaning his name, reeling, because it’s so good, so _much_ that can’t keep stroking him, and he growls, “… _too close, I can’t, I can’t_.”

He takes over, wrapping his own hand tight around himself, gripping me by the back of the neck, our heads together and he jerks himself off, holding me tight, shuddering, his whole body tense, _shaking_ , eyes closed tight and mouth open.

I’m clear enough to move down, pushing him from his side to his back and getting between his legs, I tell him I want it… I want it so much.

"Please," I lick over his curled fingers to the head of his cock, "Fen."

He moans, his free hand clutching emptily at the back of my head as he comes, curling forward.

I swallow, lick him clean.

And he laughs.

“What?” I look up at him.

He clutches at the nape of my neck again, laughing between gulps of air, “I… I thought there was going to be hair. To pull. I… habit,” he sighs, pulling me up to kiss him, “There was no hair there.”

I shrug, bracing myself over him, “Yeah… afraid hair-pulling's off the table for the time being. But now I can do _this_.”

I rub my stubbly head against the side of his face and hear first the odd rasp of hair against his skin and then him chuckling and shoving me off.

I roll to the side of the bed and grab a shirt, wiping myself off before I hold him, pull him in, kiss him slow and lazy because he’s home and I can.

He gets up after a while, when the light in the room’s just started to shift from afternoon to late-afternoon. I watch him, propped up on my elbows.

I'll never get tired of watching naked-Fen do anything.

He could balance his checkbook naked and I'd be fascinated.

Not that I think Fen's ever balanced a checkbook.

He grabs his pants off the floor and takes something out of the pocket before folding them and putting them on the trunk at the foot of my bed.

He comes back to the bed, sitting next to me.

“What’s that?”

He looks at the thing, wrapped in blue paper in his hands, “I, uh… I got you something.”

I sit up, “Huh?”

“It’s… it’s not anything… much,” he grunts and hands it to me.

“Fen.”

“I was… being back in Iceland, I…” he clears his throat, “Uh, having this,” he touches the shield around his neck, that I gave him when he left, “and this,” the fraying red string, “helped. So, I thought, maybe you’d want…”

I kiss his shoulder. He’s endearingly terrible at this.

“Open it.”

I do.

It’s a rock.

A black rock about the size and thickness of the tip of my thumb. Matte and rough and porous but rounded and on a leather cord.

“Iceland, for me is… important. It’s something from a place that… matters to me. This, is… lava. It _was_ , lava,” he says, “I found it. And I brought it back with me, to Portland and I had it, uh…” he touches the leather, “put on that. I… if you don’t like--”

I kiss him, pulling him in, hard, deep.

When I pull back, he reaches for my face, holding me between his hands, “So that when I’m gone, you…”

“Yeah,” I kiss him again, smiling.

I put it on. The rock rests on my chest about an inch below the base of my throat.

“Thank you.”

He rubs my head and laughs before leaning in to kiss the side of my throat, above the leather, right where my pulse beats.

…

“…just breathtaking!” Mom exhales, passing the joint to Fen, “My god, Merrill…” she looks at me, leaning forward to pat my leg, “you were very good too, sweetheart. But, Merrill! You should be acting _professionally_. You were just… should I put the tape on? We could go inside and--”

“No!” I laugh, watching Fen laugh and exhale, “Mom… don’t put the tape on. We just finished the show,” I grab Andy’s arm, he lets me, and look at his watch under the porch light, “Three hours ago.”

Mom had actually brought the huge ancient camcorder and taped the performance on a VHS. I’m simultaneously horrified and very proud of her; my mom does what she wants.

“Too soon?” Mom sits back down, “Oh, all right.”

Merrill is tucked in next to Gilly on wooden porch swing. He’s been beaming all night… he is so, so proud of Merrill. He brought her this huge bouquet of daisies tonight, as the play opened, which maybe have been just about the most nauseatingly adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

The image of a fake-blood splattered post-suicide Lady Macbeth-Merrill holding those obnoxiously cheerful flowers is forever seared into my brain. _So good._

Fen shifts across the little circle we’ve made in the backyard, arching his back a little and wincing.

I catch his eye and pat the bench next to myself. There’s room and it’s at least a little more supportive than the backless chair where he’s sitting now.

He smiles and shakes his head, getting up. Mom watches him, and then looks at me with a Mom-look.

His back’s felt _tight_ all day today. Not anything to be worried about, he’s assured me, but enough that he’s uncomfortable.

“Well,” Mom clears her throat, “am I allowed to talk about this Alistair character yet?”

Andy laughs, exhaling and passing the joint to me, “Please do!”

I’d stopped her from fawning over him at the theater at least. Mom has a new crush.

I mean… I can see why. But I had asked her, politely, to not gush quite so loudly while he was within earshot. There was a reception after the show in the warehouse. Varric, who’s been so supportive of the show supplied the food and drink… lots of coffee, lots of baked goods, fruit and cheese and wine and, thematically, some very nice Scotch.

“Well… his _legs_ ,” Mom cups a hand to her cheek, “he should just never wear pants. I couldn’t look at anything else. I mean…” she smiles sweetly at me, “your performance, Garrett, but… but those legs. Legs for days. Thick and long… like, handsome blonde tree trunks.”

She continues to wax poetic about them, Bela egging her on, and the rest of us can’t stop _laughing_.

I mean… she’s _right_. Alistair’s legs are impressive. There’s no denying that fact.

I lean back, folding my hands over my stomach and I see Gilly watching Fen, who is now pacing slowly, holding his lower back.

Gilly is perceptive. I mean… far less so about anything in his day to day life. Socially, he’s a bit weird actually. Awkward.

And… that’s _me_ saying that.

But he’s very good at what he does. He’s good with patients. Good at being able to read what’s going on and when to push and when not to.

And I see him looking at Fen now with that eye.

Later, when Andy and Bela and Mom go inside to make tea, he asks Fen if he’s doing PT while he’s here for the next week and a half.

Fen nods.

He sits down next to me, close, and I put my arm around him, “Yeah. It’s just…” he makes a dismissive noise in the back of his throat and leans back, into me.

Gilly nods, “Yeah, I know.”

We have tea and dig into the box of leftover baked goods from the reception that Varric insisted Mom take with her. I’m not that high, but high enough that these are, without a doubt, the best doughnut holes I’ve ever had in twenty-eight years of living.

Merrill falling asleep with a croissant in her hand and her head on Gilly’s chest is the official sign that it’s time to call it a night.

Fen and I are the last to head out.

In the entryway, Mom pulls him into a hug, being careful of his back.

He hugs her.

I know that he’s still not entirely accustomed to the Leandra Hawke level of motherly PDA… but he likes it. It just takes him by surprise every time still.

Every time.

She hugs me, kissing my cheek, and presses something into my hand.

“What is this?”

It’s a tape. And unlabeled one. One of her many VHS’s.

“That…” she smiles, tucking her loose, frizzy hair behind her ears, “Garrett, tonight… when I wasn’t looking at Alistair’s legs or… at Merrill, because she’s…”

“Right,” I laugh, and glance at Fen, “Amazing.”

“Yes, amazing,” she says, tapping the VHS in my hands with a fingertip, “but… you.. you made me think so much of your dad. On stage.”

I look at her.

“He… well, he never wanted anyone to ever see this again,” she laughs, “but… it needs to be seen by someone who will appreciate it. And I know you will. So…”

“What…”

“Your dad acted. For a while. In his twenties.”

“What?!”

“That, right there… is, as far as we understood, the only surviving copy of a very, very low budget film he was the, and I use the term loosely, _star_ of.”

I look at the tape, pulling it out of the cover.

I blink, “How have I never heard of this before?”

“It was his secret! He and I used to get a little high and watch this sometimes… I could never stop laughing. He hated it! Oh… he hated it. He’s about your age in this. I just… it’s a terrible movie, and he’s pretty terrible in it,” she reaches for my hand, squeezing, and takes Fen’s in her other hand, “but he has a few moments. Now, I know what you’re thinking, sweetheart, and I’m not suggesting that your acting was as terrible as his is…” she winks, “you made me think of his _good_ moments.”

…

When Fen and I get home, we take a shower in the hopes that the hot water will help with his back.

It does, a little, but he can’t sleep. And as tired as I am neither can I.

Because he’s uncomfortable and I hate that but also because I have the tape.

 _Dad._

“You want to watch this with me?” I ask him, sitting on edge of the bed wrapped in a towel.

He adjusts his own towel, “You want me to watch it with you?”

I have watched all the home movies of Dad so many times.

But this? Is new. A discovery. Like finding a time capsule.

And as exciting as it is… it’s a little--

“Yes.”

We go to the living room and he lies down on the floor on his back and I put the tape on. I still have a VCR. I haven’t used it in a while… and I realize as I’m pushing the tape in that all the things I use this VCR to watch are things that have to do with Dad. The _Monty Python_ tapes. Our home movies. Now this.

All of Dad can be played on an old machine… old technology. Nothing new.

And it hurts.

“Hey,” Fen says softly, and I look over my shoulder, crouched on my hands and knees as the title sequence music starts playing, sounding tinny and ridiculous, “Come here.”

I grab a stack of pillows from the couch to prop my head up and go over, on my back next to him.

We lay there on the floor, in our towels, our hands tangled together resting on his stomach, and watch 89 minutes of quite possibly the _worst_ movie either of us has ever seen.

It’s terrible.

The script is laugh out loud bad.

The cinematography is bleak and wobbly, the audio cuts out and is out of sync.

There’s some convoluted love story with a _very_ busty and largely unintelligible red-headed woman. It’s vaguely noir… kind of.

And my Dad… my Dad at twenty-nine years old, is no Laurence Olivier.

But he does look, and sound, and move like me.

And it’s so…

 _Comforting isn’t the right word._

I’m chuckling, with tears in my eyes that run down towards my ears, as Dad delivers a cringe worthy closing line, gazing dramatically into the middle distance. Fade to black.

Two minutes of credits.

I roll to my side and kiss Fen.

“That was truly awful,” he smiles against my lips.

“I know…”

And we’re still kissing when the audio changes abruptly, cutting from the horrible music over the credits to a _voice_ in a quiet room, a voice that sounds like me but isn’t me saying, with an accent, “Well. First of all, I want to apologize for that.”

We both go completely still, and my eyes snap open.

 _Dad._

We both sit up.

It’s Dad. In the living room of the old house. Smiling crookedly into the lens of the camcorder. He’s wearing a thick sweater, and I can see a little bit of silver chain around his neck. He grins sheepishly.

 _Dad._

“Oh my god.”

He scratches his black and silver beard, “But really… I think I should also say that you have no one to blame but yourself. I can say this with certainty, because there will never be any situation, ever, where one person forces another person to watch _The Family Legacy_. Ever.”

I laugh, and cover my mouth with my hand.

Fen reaches for my knee, holding onto me lightly.

“A cruel and unusual punishment if ever I heard of one,” Dad smiles broadly, “So now, you’re asking yourself, ‘Mal… if you’re recording this onto the only copy of your most humiliating episode, why not just tape over the entire thing and be done with it?’” he opens his wide, familiar hands, “To which I will reply… for whatever reason, _The Family Legacy_ makes my Leandra laugh so hard that once, and I’m not making this up, once she completely lost control of her bladder. Everywhere. She thinks it’s _that_ funny. So… no. I could never destroy something that brings so much joy into that woman’s life.”

He looks like me.

He’s my Dad.

 _Dad._

“And… I suspect that you might _be_ Leandra… if you’re watching this,” he shakes his head, “I adore you. But you have very questionable taste.”

Fen laughs next to me, rubbing my knee with his thumb.

“If you are not Leandra…” he blinks, wide blue eyes, “Christ I can’t imagine why anyone else _would_ sit all the way through that shite. Still… you must have thought it was something else. And… again, I apologize. If you are my son Garrett,” he smiles, creasing the skin around his eyes, folding his hands again, “Oh, Garrett, what you must think of me now.”

I make a noise, a choked sob, and I can’t move.

“Sometimes, a man does things he’s not proud of, son. This film, if I can be so bold to call it that, is a shining example of that,” he laughs, a warm sound that I feel in my bones and my lungs, that I _know_ , “Just remember that doing this awful thing made me enough money to buy a ticket to fly to New York, where I met your mother. Your beautiful naked mother. So…” he shrugs, “It was worth it. I think.”

He reaches towards the camera, and the focus shifts, losing him but finding him again, “And Garrett? If it is you watching this. I’m not proud of _this_. But you?”

He nods, smiles, waves, and the video ends, going to a blue screen.

Just a blue screen.

“That’s my dad,” I say into the very quiet room, “That’s my dad, Fen.”

He’s pulling me in. Against himself.

I go where he is.

His hand is steady against my shorn head, holding me as I bury my face in his neck.

I don’t cry.

I feel like I should.

But I don’t.

I hold onto him, onto Fen.

We’re silent for a long time, until I feel him laughing under me.

“What?”

“ _'Looks like the mayor,'_ ” he’s quoting the movie, quoting my dad in the movie, with a fairly passable accent and a painfully dramatic pause, “' _has fallen from grace.'_ ”

“Awful, awful, awful…” I lift my head and look at him, grinning.

“Pretty awful, yeah," he kisses me, "But worth it by his approximation.”

“Mmm…” I settle in against him, “Whatever it takes, right?”

I feel him nod, his fingers touching the leather cord at the back of my neck, “Yeah,” he kisses my forehead and I close my eyes, “Whatever it takes.”


	50. Chapter 50

I feel warm from the inside out.

Well. It’s July. It’s hot for July. And I’m sitting by a fire. So there’s that…

But this kind of inner-warm? Whiskey does that.

Whiskey in the woods really does that.

And, I mean… a _look_ like that from across the fire?

 _That look does that to me too._

I’d wanted to sit there with him between my legs, in my arms, while the whiskey and the hike and the swimming and that feeling from just being outside all day mellowed me out, relaxed everything.

I wanted to bury my face in his neck and his hair while he _tried_ to out-do Isabela with dirty anecdotes.

But sitting across the fire from him instead meant that I could see him.

He’s wearing my shirt. It’s too big. He’s rolled up the sleeves and it’s unbuttoned low enough that I can see the branched white ink on his chest.

In firelight.

 _I fucking love camping._

My skin feels warm, but not burnt. I actually had my shirt off for a good amount of today… which, I mean, I wouldn’t do… normally with a group of people.

But these people?

I’m comfortable enough with these people to bear my hairy self.

Even when Isabela sat down next to me before dinner before I put my t-shirt on and petted my chest hair, I was still comfortable.

Merrill and Gilly were the first call it a night and leave the fire. Hand in hand. Because they are adorable. All the time. And very pale… they were the unofficial sun block brigade today… _so much SPF_.

The remaining four of us sat there together a while, long enough for Andy to finish his whiskey, and for Bela to finish a last S’more.

When he leaned over, taking her left hand in his own and started nibbling the melted marshmallow from between her fingers, she was quick to get them both up and stumbling towards their tent, lantern held out in front of her like a captain in a storm.

And now… it’s just Fen and me, across from each other.  
He’s the first to move which surprises me.

My chair is low, my feet planted on the ground and my knees are bent. He drops down between them, kneeling in the dirt between my thighs.

I’m still, reclined back, and settled into the nylon of the seat. It takes a concentrated effort not to lurch forward, into him.

He leans in, his warm stomach pressed against my cock which I’m suddenly very aware of. Suddenly? No, not true. I’ve been aware of it for a while.

 _My whole life._

 _But, you know, here… since he laughed at one of Bela’s jokes and the tin cup he was drinking out of slipped, spilling whiskey down his chin._

 _And he caught it with his thumb._

 _And licked it off… with just the tip of his tongue._

 _And caught my eye._

Yeah. I’ve been _aware_ of it since then.

One of his hands snakes around my ribs while he cups the other against the side of my face, fingertips against my short hair, behind my ear.

 _This haircut, even as it’s grown out a little, has been really nice in the heat. I’ve gotten used to it._

“Hawke,” he breathes, warm whiskey, between us.

Fen’s not drunk. I’ve never seen him _drunk_. He tells me that his tolerance is inhuman. I just think he has self-control.

But he is warm… from the inside out.

“Yes?” I try to smirk, leveling my eyes to his.

He rumbles between my thighs. My hands twitch.

His eyes slide to them, seeing the movement.

I let me head fall back, and laugh… _my cool, unaffected cover’s blown._

He kisses the center of my chest.

I look down at him, watch him… words and air sticking in my throat as he kisses down, further… down my stomach, down…

“Fen…”

 _Oh, fuck._

He presses his face against me, between my legs, mouth and breath hot against my cock through the fabric of my hiking shorts.

“Fuck!”

He smiles, that crooked, warm smile and glances at the other tents.

Ours is behind him.

“Shh,” pulls me forward, kissing me, tongue light, teasing, against mine, “Shh.”

 _I smell rain and campfire and taste Fen._

 _The combination make me dizzy._

“Tent,” I sigh the word.

“Tent?”

I nod, fast and stupid.

He scrapes teeth against my jaw and palms my cock. I whine.

“We _could_ stay here,” he purrs against my shoulder.

I think about it.

There’s the quick _zirrrrrrh_ of a tent zipper.

Merrill pops out, pulling the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing as low as she can to cover… what appears to be a very lacy pair of panties.

“Oh! I, uh,” she sees us, and stage whispers across the space between us, “didn’t know anyone was… ah… tiny bladder, size of a pea!”

She doesn’t seem to mind that Fen is squarely, and unabashedly, situated between my legs.

But what she does seem to mind is that our presence is preventing her from addressing that tiny pea-sized bladder in privacy.

Fen chuckles quietly and stands up, “Good night, Merrill.”

He offers me both of his hands.

“Oh, good night, Fen,” she’s still holding down her shirt, “Garrett. I think it’s going to rain.”

I take his hands and stand, and he pulls me away from the center of camp.

“Seems that way. You’ll be all right,” I let him pull me, “Night!”

I do smell rain. Closer.

I’m about to say this when he pushes me against a tree.

And then I can’t imagine ever saying anything again.

He feels different. In the July heat, everything feels different.

Good different.

I hold his hips in my hands, he holds my jaw in his.

“Inside. Tent. Now.”

I nod, kissing him again, deep and open.

We move apart, just enough to walk functionally. He leads and I follow.

 _I’d follow him anywhere._

“Shoes,” I say.

He exhales a shaky breath and looks over his shoulder at me, reaching down and taking off both shoes without taking his eyes off of my face.

And then he’s in.

I frantically pull off both of my shoes and drop them on the tarp under our tent with measured abandon before crawling in.

I zip the flap closed behind myself.

And his teeth are against my throat.

“Christ,” he whispers, “you… today--”

He watched me. Today. I know he did.

It felt good because I’m not always the most confident. Actually, I’m terrible at a lot of things that normal people are good at. Awkward. Inept. Generally socially helpless.

But… camping?

Oh, I know how to camp.

I did it last weekend with Alistair after Macbeth closed.

Alistair, who as it turns out is also _really_ into camping. And it was nice. Simple. We brought our huge dogs and sleeping bags and a massive amount of food (we’re both big guys and can easily put away a lot of meat and potatoes). We plan to do it again. Soon.

Al knows what he’s doing, but with these guys… I’m the most experienced.

I’m… the leader.

Which feels nice, actually. Busy, kind of exhausting… but nice.

We’re hardly roughing it. It’s car-camping.

But still. We’re outside.

I trouble-shot. I fixed tents. I know what plants not to walk through.

I even found a spring to swim in before we came back and started dinner.

 _My god, Fen’s body against mine in cold clear water on a hot day._

 _Remarkable. Better than I could have imagined._

 _“Swimming…” he said, quiet enough that only I heard him, “Not really my thing.”_

 _I kissed the back of his neck, “I’ve got you.”_

 _It was a lovely, quiet, semi-private moment… until six-feet-and-two-inches of Andy dropped into the water nearby, after swinging across on a rope that previous campers had thoughtfully left._

I kiss Fen, holding his face between my hands, and groan openly when he starts pulling at the button of my shorts.

I have always wanted to do this.

This, right now, this? This has been a long harbored fantasy.

Camping.

Sex.

In a tent.

 _Oh, fuck, Fen--_

“Yes,” I let my head fall back against his pillow as his fingers close around me, under the shorts, inside the briefs.

I feel the tip of his tongue against my throat, up to my ear, which he _bites_.

“How long have you been hard, Hawke?”

“Mmm, uh…” I swallow, and laugh thickly at the smirk in his voice, “on and off since the first round of s’mores when-- _ah._ ”

I gasp as he very carefully strokes up.

 _I’m so safe in his hands… so… safe and so hard and--_

“Please… more of that.”

“More?”

I nod, hearing the scratch of my short hair against his pillowcase.

In the tent, it’s dark; we’re pretty far from the dying fire.

“Yes, more,” I say out loud when I realize he can’t see me.

“What do you want?”

“You.”

He stops moving, and I try to see him in the dark.

I can make out the shape of him, sort of.

I reach for his head.

He lets go, letting me roll over him, between his legs.

But I get frustrated by my shorts, and a second later I roll off to the side and start sliding them and my briefs down.

 _Click._

He flips the switch on the little red tent light. It’s faint, just barely enough to be able to see inside the tent but hardly enough to light up the whole thing like a beacon in the night… or to cast our shadows on the tent walls.

I look at him, panting, with my shorts and underwear in a tangle at my ankles.

He chuckles and reaches down to help me get them off completely.

“You,” I say, stretched out in just a t-shirt in front of him, his eyes dark and focused on me… on the places his hands slide to, over, on, “are my favorite.”

I sit up and undo his jeans.

The side of his face pressed against mine as I pull down the tab of his zipper.

He puts his hands over my hands, pushing them down. I get the idea and take off his jeans, his boxers.

We roll together, him on his back and I pull them off, away from his feet.

I take off my t-shirt which is now sticking to my back from lying on the warm sleeping bags and look down at him, hard, perfect. He takes off his glasses and folds them, slipping them into the little mesh pocket dangling above his head.

I move slowly, straddling his legs and supporting my weight over him, hands sinking into the air-mattress under him.

My cock brushes his and we both groan, his head tilting back, exposing the stretch of his throat, that perfect jaw, and white ink that disappears under _my_ shirt.

I roll to his side, my legs still over his, and unbutton the shirt.

Slowly.

I take my time, kissing skin as it’s exposed.

I feel the tempo change and I think he does too.

“Hawke.”

I unbuttoned the last button and now I’m just staring at his navel. I blink and look up at his face.

 _We’re here. Really here. Right now._

I kiss a scar near the bottom of his ribs and reach into the shirt, holding his sides.

Suddenly this feels important.

I want to say something meaningful. Important.

“I used to think about fucking you… all the time.”

He laughs and I crawl up, over him, laughing too but quieter.

“Shh!” I settle my hips against his, fitting into place in the specific way that _I_ fit with _him_ , and lean on one arm, trying to cover his mouth with my hand, “We have to be quiet! That’s how tent-sex works, Fen.”

“Oh, is it?” he says behind my fingers.

“Yes. I think. I assume…” I move my hand, “Furtive, quiet awkward tent sex. In sleeping bags. Or… on them. I’ve never done it. But… I’ve thought about doing it. A lot.”

“Hmm,” he grins, “In addition to thinking about fucking me…”

I bury my face into the side of his neck, “Yeah.”

I’m hard, pressed against him and both of our bodies are slick, sweaty… it’s uncomfortable, stuffy, electric with the rain outside not falling yet, but somehow… everything feels so _good_. Imperfect. Real. The slide of my skin against his, the way that he looks wearing _my_ shirt, open, and nothing else… the way that his hair feels against the side of my face… the smell of him, and me, and us.

“Tell me what we did.”

I look at him. His eyes are dark, barely open, his lips are full and--

I kiss him.

He pushes his forehead against mine.

At one point, this had been a sensitive subject. _Me… fucking him… in the… standard, generally acknowledged sense._ A few weeks after New York, he asked if I was genuinely okay with the fact that he doesn’t think he’ll be okay with being in that position again.

It was a civil conversation we had when we were both fully-clothed. And far from bed.

If I remember correctly, and I do, we had that conversation in the kitchen while I was making French toast.

He’d brought it up then and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings… or seem like I was pressuring him, or that I _would_ pressure him.

But it’s true that I do miss having sex that way.

I still think about it… with him.

We’ve been… _tougher_ , since New York. Not hardened, or callous or anything. But… tougher. More durable? No, that’s not right… but… honest. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but more than that, I didn’t want to _lie_ to him. And I didn’t. Haven’t. I told him that, _yes, I wanted that. That I came thinking about being inside of him. Fucking him. Often._

 _That I still think about it._

 _That I still come thinking about it._

But I also told him, standing there making French toast, that what I want more than anything else is to be with him. And maybe I’m maturing… or evolving or something… I don’t know… but, I’m more interested in being with him, in all the ways that I can be, than to fuck it up by being hung up on not being able to do _one_ particular kind of thing with him.

As epic as I continue to believe that one particular thing might be.

And, really… I fucking love what we do. All the things.

I mean… _a lot_.

Like, all kinds.

Things like… this.

 _Fucking hell, like this._

And now, we can talk about it, here, like this and it’s beyond okay, it’s _fucking_ hot.

“Tell me, Hawke,” his voice, here, now, in the tent with me, is thick… confident, “How did you fuck me? Hard?”

I groan, and shake my head, _fuck! His voice…_ , “Sometimes, yeah.”

I’m grinding against his thigh, his skin against mine, my hand on his belly, feeling every, single, breath.

 _Muscle and breath and skin and sweat--_

Heavy raindrops hit the outside of the tent but we’re dry in here. I had the forethought to put rain-flaps on all the tents while they were busy burning dinner.

“Tell me.”

“I…” I feel him roll his hips under mine, feel his _cock_ , the flex of muscle, “...in my bed, or… once at that waffle place. I… against a wall at work in the back room,” he smiles at that, “holding you up, holding your legs, open, and…”

I grunt as he shifts us both, lining us up, cocks together, and guides my hand lower, along his body, across familiar skin and tattoos and hair.

Holding my hand around both of us.

“Did I love it?”

I nod against him, skull to skull, and the tips of my fingers smooth down on their own, away from his hand.

Holding on.

He sighs, watching me, his hand curled calmly against my hip.  
I shudder, stroking up, “Did I love it?” he asks again, a sharper edge in his voice now.

“You moaned… my name, god, your _voice_ … begged me to, to fuck you, to make you come. To come in you, in your mouth, your…” I smile, “on you.”

“I begged for that, huh?” he’s smiling, thrusting against me, in my hand, hair damp across his forehead.

“Yeah,” I shrug, “in my head, I’m _incredible_. A god. You thought so anyway.”

In the front pocket of my backpack, I packed lube and condoms.

Yes, I brought lube to the woods.

I mean… I thought there was a good chance that we’d… maybe need it.

For things.

I kiss him and reach for the pocket.

I take out the little bottle. It’s travel sized. I’m not ridiculous in my expectations.

He watches me with his head on my pillow as I stroke him, my hands slick and cool. Then I stroke myself, moaning loudly enough that he _shh’s_ me, before bringing both of us back together. Cock against cock in my hand.

“What else?” he swallows, throat bobbing.

“We did a lot of things we’ve done,” I say, holding my breath as I try to remember words, “You sucked my cock. I sucked yours. I, uh, I ate your ass,” he groans, “And you loved that.” He closes his eyes again and arches his back, “Well, you _do_ love that. And, sometimes I… god, I’d fuck you outside, on a blanket outside… hard, and fast and…” his mouth is open, and I feel him groan deep in his chest, “I made love to you. Slow. Deep. Careful. Face to face, so that I could see you, _watch_ you…” I kiss him, I say into his open mouth, “So that I could see.”

 _I’m dizzy._

 _The edges are all hazy._

 _And all that exists in the world, really, is the sound of his voice, the taste of his skin, his cock against mine. Right now.  
His body. And the person he is inside of it._

 _Him._

 _Not a fantasy version of him._

 _Fen._

 _With scars._

 _Tattoos._

 _Broken bones._

 _Screws and plates._

 _And boundaries._

 _I love him. And his boundaries. The things about him that will change and the things that won’t. And the fact that he can’t crack eggs without getting shell everywhere. And that he’s a terrible parallel parker. That his eyesight is awful. I love his legs, even thought he hates them._

 _The way that he fits with me._

 _That he’s so strong._

 _Brave._

 _I love that I can do this with him._

 _That I trust him._

 _And he trusts me._

 _That he’s real._

“Hawke, look at me.”

I am.

I groan, my fingers gripping at his side, skin, against his ribs.

I’m grinding against him, his skin against mine.

His arms are out at his sides, eyes closed. His hands clench.

He doesn’t say anything but makes this deep sound… in his chest, in his throat… a sound with a breath.

 _It’s a good sound._

The rain is coming down harder.

Just rain, no thunder.

He bucks against me.

 _More._

“Fen.”

I have to say it a second time, but when I do he lifts his head, looking up at me with messy hair and a smile.

“You’re so fucking incredible,” I say.

“I’m close, Hawke…” he moans.

I smile weakly, losing my rhythm, “ _Fuck_ , Fen.”

“Please…” his voice cracks, “I’m so close, close… Hawke… please, make me--”

“Shit, Fen!” it’s too much, “I’m--”

He’s smiling, crooked and sweaty and close too, but keeping his eyes on my face, still, “ _Please_ , Hawke--”

I’m there, right there, on the sharp edge of it.

But before I come, I see him.

I _see_ him…

And he doesn’t look away, doesn’t turn, only shuts his eyes then, _right then_ , as he comes in my hand, on my hand and his chest, stomach.

I’m on the edge of it for so long, _so long_ and it feels so good I can’t breathe… I can’t—

“Come for me, Hawke.”

I hear him, ragged and thick, I hear him and I fall, _come_ , hard.

I let myself collapse down on the air-mattress next him, my legs tangled in his.

He rubs my head, my hair scratching against the palm of his hand.

“Christ. How quiet do you think we were?” I ask him, “Do you think they heard us?”

He shrugs, “It’s raining.”

I grin, wide, pulling him into myself, “It is, yeah.”

I have the urge to go out, in it. In the rain.

I feel like doing it.

I’m on the verge of telling him that I’m going to do it, and that he should come with me--

When I fall asleep.

…

“You’re _what?!_ ”

“Oh, calm down.”

“I won’t calm down. What…” this changes everything, “How long?”

Okay… maybe I’m overreacting.

Maybe it doesn’t change everything.

But it changes a lot.

“I’ll be there until the fall…”

“Define fall.”

Isabela rolls her eyes at me, adjusting the strap on her dress, “October 5th. Or there about.”

She’s leaving.

Isabela’s leaving Bianca’s.

My Isabela.

Well... okay, she’s not really mine.

She pulls me in for a hug, “Oh, kitten… you and your big wibbling heart. I’ll still be in Kirkwall… I just won’t be pouring coffee professionally anymore.”

I let her hug me.

I even let her pat my ass.

Because I know she likes it.

“Ugh… have you showered?” she pushes me back, “You still smell like camping.”

“I have, yes…” I smell myself, “It’s the smoke… stays with you.”

We’re at Mom’s. For the 4th.

If I’m honest, it’s my second least favorite holiday.

 _Easter is my number one least favorite._

 _I just hate Easter. The bunny. The resurrection bit. All of it._

 _But… the 4th of July is a strong second._

Largely because I have such a high--

Fireworks go off down the block.

 _Crack._

“Oh, Jesus!”

\--startle-response.

Isabela laughs.

I’m a quiet man. I like quiet things. Naps, for example.

And an entire night of things… exploding, and booming and catching on fire? No thanks.

I look at her, sighing, “You’re not… leaving-leaving?”

“No. Leave you? Never. I…” she shrugs, “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. And Varric is willing to go in with me. It’s… I think it’s the right time.”

She wants to open a pub. _The Siren’s Call._ She has a name picked out already for this pub that she’s going to open here, in Kirkwall.

They were keeping it quiet, until now.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Oh, you’ll see me all the time,” she swats at me, “I will still be living directly above your sofa.”

I nod, “I know… I just… I hate change.”

“Sweetheart?” I hear Mom from the front yard.

Bela squeezes my face quickly before letting me go, “Thing’s always change, kitten… you’ve just got to learn to enjoy it. Life would be so dull if it never changed.”

I go out to the front where Mom is waiting in the driveway.

Bethany’s almost here.

This is the first time we’re seeing her in months… and the last time until she flies to Italy. For a year.

Mom’s station-wagon pulls into the driveway.

“Oh, sweetheart, she said she brought a friend.”

“Oh? Okay.”

The engine turns off and Bethany explodes out of the passenger side.

“Mom!” she’s wearing a red t-shirt because she flew here, “Gare-Bear!”

Carver gets out, also wearing red… still forgoing sleeves.

“Holy crap, you’re so bald! Happy 4th of July!” she says hugging me and then kissing Mom on the cheek, “I know you hate it.”

I sigh, “It’s just--”

“So loud,” both she and Carver say at the same time.

The back door of the car opens and Bethany’s friend, her male friend, gets out, standing kind of… awkwardly behind Carver.

Carver who, it should be mentioned, bulked up like hell since the last time I saw him.

His arms are enormous. Even if I worked out every day, compositionally I could never get that kind of… mass. Not that I’m jealous. I’m content being… as I am.

Anyway… Bethany’s friend.

He’s… familiar.

Kind of.

I go over to say hi.

“Hey, Garrett.”

I stop.

“Uh…” I blink. Tall but not that tall… really short blondish hair. Fairly nondescript, “…hi?”

He smiles, shutting the car door, “It’s… you’re _really_ tall.”

“I…”

“Cullen.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m…” he steps closer, pulling on a backpack, “I’m… do you… we were, um, friends. When we were kids.”

Oh my god. Bethany’s friend _is_ Cullen.

“I was with you… at camp. When you fell and,” he touches his side, where on me is my dog-scar from where I slid down a hill after going over the handle-bars of my bike.

“Yeah… yeah! Cullen?”

He smiles.

Yup.

It’s totally Cullen.

I shake his hand, because anything more seems… too familiar.

I haven’t seen this person in about twenty-years.

Wait.

Bethany’s _friend_ is Cullen.

“So, you and--”

“Stop,” Bethany says behind me, “I hear that Dad-tone in your voice, Garrett… and you can just stop right there. He’s my _friend_.”

Cullen cringes, and raises his hands, “Completely platonic. I swear.”

Bethany’s standing next to me.

He was in the military, and then after that, went back to school. Apparently, he’s a grad student at the research institution in the same town as her school.

And they met at a protest.

Well, she was protesting… he was just trying to read a book about the Cold War. They’ve been hanging out.

“Huh.”

She pats my arm, “Pla-ton-ic. Calm down. Where’s Fen? Is everybody here already?”

“Uhh…” I shake my head, “Yeah. They’re… in the back. He’s here.”  
Bethany reaches for Cullen’s wrist and pulls him after her towards the house.

“Oh my god, Garrett,” Mom stands next to me after Carver’s slowly followed the two of them inside, “Tone it down.”

“Tone what down?”

“The protective older brother shtick.”

“I _am_ a protective older brother…” I scratch my head, “it’s not a shtick. He’s as old as I am.”

“You _ancient_ twenty-eight year olds…”

I kiss the top of her head.

 _Crack._

More fireworks already.

I jump, “Fuck!”

Chuckling, she wraps an arm around my waist and guides me to the front door, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go eat some sausages.”

…

“Andy!!” I’m standing on the curb, away from the center of the cul-de-sac where Andy has constructed what appears, to me anyway, to be a very dangerous ladder and fireworks… or a _deathtrap_ , “Where’s the bucket of water?”

He stops for a second and looks over his shoulder at me, “Uh… right here, _Dad._ ”

Bela is reaching out for him, cackling, “Come here, you pyro! You’re going to lose your eyebrows!”

Carver’s standing next to her… just about as anxious for this thing to go off as Andy is. He’s as giddy as I’ve ever seen him… which, for my dead-pan baby brother is not very giddy at all. Giddiness is relative, I suppose.

I look at Merrill and Gilly who are both sitting on the curb eating _very_ large slices of the strawberry, blueberry and whip-cream flag-cake that Bela brought and waiting for Andy’s… towering inferno to ignite.

They’re at a safe distance anyway.

Not as safe as me. Back… _way_ back. Well out of range. I hope.

Mom’s safe on the porch, drinking margaritas with Bethany and _my-childhood-friend_ Cullen.

They do appear… platonic.

I remember Cullen being a very nice kid. Polite. A little stodgy… which, I mean, a stodgy kid is memorable.

 _It’s just so weird to me still._

 _I caught salamanders with him._

 _You never think you’re going to see the person you caught salamanders with again, you know?_

Down the street, another set of fireworks goes off with a boom that echoes in my chest.

I jump, “Mother-fucker!”

“Hey…” Fen steps up next to me, chuckling and handing me a beer, “You okay?”

“Yeah…”

 _Crack._

I jump, “Balls!”

He laughs, leaning into me.

“This seems safe,” he says dryly, assessing Andy’s tower.

“It really doesn’t.”

Andy’s lighting the fuses.

And then _running_.

The _thing_ goes off. Massive. And red. And _loud._

I jump, “Godammit, Andy!”

Fen grabs me, holding me around the waist. He laughing, eyes still fixed on the on-going most likely illegal display.

“Hey,” he says, setting his beer down in the grass, “Come here.”

“It’s just unsafe!”

“Yeah,” he reaches for my face, “It is. You’re funny, Hawke.”

He kisses me and I taste his beer.

“I’m glad someone thinks so,” I exhale, “I _hate_ fireworks.”

“I know that now.”

I kiss his forehead,

They’re safe. All of them. Andy included... he still even appears to have intact eyebrows. And all his fingers. He's standing with his arms around Bela as the damn ladder is dying down. Smoldering rather than… _exploding_.

I smell that pungent spent-fireworks smell.

I think of last year’s fourth of July… just, me and Mom and Carver and Bethany sitting in the backyard in lawn chairs with sad little sparklers.

Which was totally more my speed, but, as much as I hate the fireworks and the smoke and the noise… having _them_ here?

All of them?

Well, that feels pretty damn good.

 _Isabela’s right -- things always change._

 _I hate change, so much, because it’s uncertain._

 _I like certainty. I’m a big fan of it._

 _When things change… you can’t control **how** they change. I mean, sure, sometimes you have control, but not always._

 _And sometimes change hurts, and you can’t take it back, and you miss what you had. A lot. Because sometimes you lose someone. Or some part of them. Or yourself._

“You want some cake?” I ask Fen, who looks up at me after picking up his beer from the grass, “Or… I’ll eat the cake if you want to eat the berries.”

He chuckles, “Sure.”

“We’d better hurry then before Merrill and Gilly eat it all. That’s their third slice.”

I walk with him, through the smoke, and I watch him from the corner of my eye.

 _Sometimes… change is really good._

 _You can't ever know going into it if it will be good-change or bad-change._

 _But whether it's fate, or chance, or whatever... I guess when it comes down to it, you just have to... trust it. Jump. Or fall._

 _Because it's worth it when it's good-change, when you don’t lose anything. You just… gain._

 _And that feels good. Is good._

 _Really. Fucking. Good._

…

 _ **Epilogue.**_

…

 _This guy. The guy with the white ink tattoos. This guy whose voice is my favorite sound in the world, who can pretty much always read me with a glance, who hasn’t been home for a week._

I open my eyes and smile. _He’s made coffee._

More to the point, _he’s home._

I sit up in bed, flipping the tangled sheets and the quilt off of my legs as best I can with not just Bradley… but our other two dogs, Audrey and Paul, lying there as well.

Yeah, that’s right. With Fen gone our bed always feels too big, too empty, and despite my better judgment, I tend to let all three dogs sleep in there with me. It’s a lot of dog for one bed, with Audrey and Bradley both being massive… and with Paul, corgi-sized though he may be, being an absolute bed hog.

It’s a cold autumn morning… colder than usual. I was freezing earlier when I got up to let them out. Fen wasn’t home then so after they came back inside, I went back to bed… and they followed. Now, Fen’s turned on the heat, and it’s cozy enough that I don’t need anything more than just the pajama pants I pulled on earlier. Not even socks.

I head down the stairs. The apartment, being a loft as it is, is nice and open. We both really appreciated how open it is… and how much light comes is. We looked at a lot of apartments before picking this one. It felt right, and it had a yard. I’m a big supporter of yards.

The stairs from the bedroom come out into the kitchen. I’m so heavy on the steps that there’s no way he doesn’t hear me coming.

Which is fine by me.

He’s standing there, in our kitchen.

 _I need to be kissing him right now._

I do, I kiss him, and he holds my face in his hands.

“Hmm,” he rubs the side of my face with his thumb and grins, “Did you just wake up?”

“Yeah.”

“Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

"Black, or..."

"Black’s perfect."

He kisses me again and the turns to pour me a cup. He’s wearing that ratty black sweater, with the torn collar. _His favorite._

He flew home this morning and told me that I should sleep in, on my day off, rather than come pick him up at such an ungodly hour.  
Not that I would have minded, really.

He has my cup in his hand.

I smile at him, just so… _stupid_ happy to have him home. For longer this time. He’s home for at least the rest of the month… maybe longer.

“Go on,” he grins, “it’s yours.”

I take the mug. His fingers brush mine.

“I can’t believe I slept in this late,” I sip, savor, and set it down on the counter, “I never sleep in this late.”

“It’s what… nine?”

“A little after I think.”

“Hmm,” he reaches for me again, his hands hot from the coffee, “I missed you.”

I lean into him, curl around him. _Fen._

I glance at the clock on the stove as I bury my fingers in his hair.

I smile; _I can’t help it._

It’s 9:05 am.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Handers Solo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/241506) by [payroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/payroo/pseuds/payroo)




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